Moving costs from Maryland to Sarasota? (Jacksonville: movers, new house, buying)

[Pookahan]

Greetings My family is contemplating a move from MD to Sarasota. Would anyone who has moved from the NE to Sarasota share their approximate moving costs or offer any suggestions? I talked to a family who moved from Jacksonville to our area and they told me it cost them about $15,000. Ouch! Our last move was only 5 miles We currently live in a 4 bedroom house. Thanks for any help you can offer us!

[Harbor Hopper]

It really depends on how you plan to move. You didn't share any details. The cost could be as little at $1,000 for a service such as ABF Freight (they drop a trailer, you load, they deliver to the new location, you unload), up to as much as $7 or 8,000 for a full-service packing and moving service.
One bit of advice: PURGE before you move! So many people come down here with every single item they've accumulated over 30+ years. There are no basements, so people cram all this stuff in their garages so they can't even park a vehicle in them. Getting rid of unneeded/unused/unneccessary stuff will save lots of money on moving, and also save tons of space in the new house. We actually paid for our entire move from MI by selling unneccessary belongings prior to moving. You really have to think... is that 8 yr old sofa really worth $xxx it will cost to move it, or would it be better to sell it on craigslist, and buy another one when you get here. Good luck!

[Pookahan]

Thanks for the response. Good suggestions. Our current house is much larger than what we will be buying so I will be selling all kinds of stuff!

[patsyh]

If you go to wheatonworldwide.com (Wheaton van lines moving company), there's an option for getting a ballpark figure on line. You just enter the zip code of where you are and where you're going, the # of rooms, etc and you get a rough estimate. No annoying phone calls, etc.
I wound up not going with that company for my upcoming move but it's a starting point.
Also google reviews of moving companies-a good site is movingscam.com, which lists moving companies by state with reviews by users and there's a community forum with a lot of helpful info. Bottom line, do your homework and don't necessarily go with the cheapest--horror stories abound of people's household goods being held hostage after the price was jacked up after the move, etc.
Good luck!

[mr&mrssunshine]

thats a journey Big House has (and still does) done

[Big House]

Originally Posted by mr&mrssunshine

thats a journey Big House has (and still does) done

We live in MD and down here. We haven't attempted yet to put our house on the market up there. We do plan on selling off a lot of our stuff rather than try to move it down here though. So I concur with the logic that Harbor Hopper posted.

[Rushmore]

We moved MUCH of a 4-BR house in Baltimore to Sarasota, but we were very happy to have jettisoned a bunch of the heavier stuff. These days, it is NOT hard to sell stuff on CraigsList, really.

Long distance movers are not that expensive. They'll come get the stuff, and they'll meet you here in three or four days or whatever. They go by the pound. I don't think we paid more than $2K.

Infinitely better than trying to do it all yourself, at a cost of a possible herniated disc, and a massive headache.

[beachymom]

We went from a 5 bedroom, 4 car garage with full PACKED basement in Ohio, to a 4 bedroom with no basement here and a 2 car garage. We sold/gave away SO much (bil is still selling things for us) and we still overpacked. Our garage is half full of boxes I can't even get to since we have no room for it. I actually love having nothing extra lying around. We have just what we need. I will eventually go through each box one at a time to see what I need to keep, otherwise it will be gone, too.

Anyway, we went through a local mover that we had used before, and they subbed it out to a national company. We paid around $5000. We were quoted higher but after the weigh-in, the cost dropped. We boxed up everything except for the flat screens, mirrors and such. They packed those securely for us.

[Big House]

Originally Posted by Rushmore

We moved MUCH of a 4-BR house in Baltimore to Sarasota, but we were very happy to have jettisoned a bunch of the heavier stuff. These days, it is NOT hard to sell stuff on CraigsList, really.

Long distance movers are not that expensive. They'll come get the stuff, and they'll meet you here in three or four days or whatever. They go by the pound. I don't think we paid more than $2K.

Infinitely better than trying to do it all yourself, at a cost of a possible herniated disc, and a massive headache.

Who did you use? We will probably move some stuff down, but plan on selling or giving away a lot of things, and maybe storing a few things as well.

[Pookahan]

Thanks for all your feedback, I can't wait to get out of Maryland, no offense to anyone.