Moving company suggestions (Tampa, Pompano Beach: transporting, mover, house)

[Amyv516]

Moving to the Tampa Bay area from Maryland.
I got a quote for PODS, you fill and they move, but Inwas surprised at the rate.
Has anyone used a similar company that is good, with a more reasonable rate?

Thanks for your help!!

[MortonR]

I've done a couple of cross-country moves and found that the PODS stuff was really expensive relatively speaking.

We had really good experiences with U-Pack, which is a division of ABF Freight. Essentially, they bring a tractor trailer to your home or place of business, park it, and give you time to fill it yourself, then you call them when you're done and they pick it up. It's transported to your destination where you empty it, then call them to pick it up.

The cost is based on the distance and the amount of space you require, if I recall correctly.

It's pretty reasonable and very convenient. Definitely cheaper than the PODS stuff from what I recall.

http://www.upack.com

RM

[Corvette Ministries]

Second on UPack. We just moved from Raleigh to Ft Myers and UPack has our goods here in storage till we close on our house. I did a lot of research and UPack took the lead. Very helpful staff and they had a lot of good reviews.
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[MortonR]

While it's been about 4-5 years, at the time a 28 foot trailer (the whole thing!) from the Midwest to Tampa was a little over $2,000. I'm sure it's more now, but that was a lot less than what the PODS cost was, and we would have had to do multiple PODS, too.

The trailer left our place in the Midwest and was parked at our storage location in Tampa three days later. This is all coordinated with ABF and you're able to track progress online as well.

Something else I would highly recommend - hire professional loaders. We found some through a local moving company, but the UHaul website also has resources for identifying and hiring local loaders and packers.

Professional loaders can make the difference in whether or not all your stuff can fit or not. We had a 4,000 sf house of furniture and personal goods. If we had loaded the trailer not only would we have been wiped out and possibly injured, we would have never gotten everything to fit. I seem to recall that four to five hours of labor was maybe $600? We rented plenty of moving pads from UHaul and just stood back and watched the loaders go at it. It was money well spent for a number of reasons.

We did the same thing on this end as well. Again, it took 2-3 professional loaders to remove everything at our storage location and get it packed into a 10x20 storage unit (some of the things went to our house, so not everything from the truck went into storage.)

RM

[Spring Hillian]

Originally Posted by Amyv516

Moving to the Tampa Bay area from Maryland.
I got a quote for PODS, you fill and they move, but Inwas surprised at the rate.
Has anyone used a similar company that is good, with a more reasonable rate?

Thanks for your help!!

Get a "binding estimate" from your local North American Van Lines agent. Ive used them twice and both times the price was the best and the service was outstanding.

Learn about the different types of estimates.

This site has good info


https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/consumer-p...tect-your-move

[mcharas]

Originally Posted by Amyv516

Moving to the Tampa Bay area from Maryland.
I got a quote for PODS, you fill and they move, but Inwas surprised at the rate.
Has anyone used a similar company that is good, with a more reasonable rate?

Thanks for your help!!

We currently use Pack Rat, which is affiliated with Lowe's. They are cheaper and you get essentially the same thing.... Ours is stored in a temperature-controlled location, which PODS offers as well, if you aren't ready to unpack it right away. On our own, we tightly packed most of a 2,200 square foot house (we kept some out, like beds and end tables- but left dressers in- to use in our current rental). It can be done. When we looked at moving companies, it was tens of thousands of dollars less expensive to do it our way. And you can get in to storage with very short notice, which is just like storing in a more traditional storage center.

As an example for trucks... from NY to Se FL just last August, our quote for a moving truck (not including them helping to pack and move things) was over 10k on the low end... One line (not sure if I can say here or if it will be mod cut) was almost 19k! If we could have done it for 2k like Morton, we would have... That would be an incredible, unbelievable deal.

[MortonR]

Originally Posted by mcharas

As an example for trucks... from NY to Se FL just last August, our quote for a moving truck (not including them helping to pack and move things) was over 10k on the low end... One line (not sure if I can say here or if it will be mod cut) was almost 19k! If we could have done it for 2k like Morton, we would have... That would be an incredible, unbelievable deal.

Careful so that there isn't confusion here.

You sounds like you're talking about a professional mover. The ABF "UPack" service is nothing more than providing the trailer and transporting it to your destination.

I just ran a quick quote on their service from Albany, NY to Pompano Beach, FL for 17' of space. The quote was $3,475 for transportation, no loading/unloading. Need more space than that? It's $107/foot additional with the maximum being 28 feet.

I was sure the prices had gone up, but that's still not $10k. Their "PODS" equivalent was over $5,000 for the same amount of space.

RM

[bobandsherry]

Check out USHIP.COM. You post what you want to move, you'll receive bids (similar to Ebay in process). There is a rating system (again similar to Ebay) so you can see how long they've been in business and how happy their customers are. We moved our daughter that way and a friend of ours did as well. We also went through USHIP to find a mover for our own move. Warning - do not use BonJim Shipping (also does business as RMRR SHIPPING). Long story short, they left us in a bind. Worked out for us in the end by securing another mover.

BTW, we looked at UPACK and PODS, price to move daughter and our own home was less expensive by finding a mover on USHIP.