Thoughts on long distance move (Tucson, Green Valley: car rental, rentals, mover)

[fxstb]

I am planning a move to Green Valley area from Illinois. The move will be completed in stages, I won't make the final move until. Early 2017. Any ideas how this can be accomplished with the best ease with low cost is appreciated.

[SomewhereWarm]

Originally Posted by fxstb

I am planning a move to Green Valley area from Illinois. The move will be completed in stages, I won't make the final move until. Early 2017. Any ideas how this can be accomplished with the best ease with low cost is appreciated.

Buy a trailer.

Make your trips back and forth.

Sell the trailer when you're done.

[beTucsonan]

Yeah. The back and forth thing is always going to be the opposite of easy and low-cost, but it really depends on how much stuff you are moving and how/when you are moving it. If you have a place to store stuff in Green Valley and you will be driving back and forth a few times, then stuff your car full, or rent a trailer (depending on your car and it's ability to do that), or whatever. If not, it'd be cheaper to move it all at once by just renting a single U-Haul and only paying for cross-country gas once. Depending on your vehicle, it's gas mileage, and how long your stays in Green Valley will be, it may be cheaper to fly into Tucson and rent a car than to drive your car back and forth (think about maintenance in addition to fuel costs).

Depending on the furniture pieces you own and the quality of them, it may be cheaper to jettison them and replace them in Green Valley. If you can avoid a trailer or a U-Haul or whatever by not bringing along an old (soon to be replaced) mattress and a junk sofa then obviously that's the way to do it. But if you have nice furniture that example clearly won't work for you.

If you do end up needing to go with the U-Haul, or similar, solution, look into your options with the PODS boxes. These are large-sized crates that the shipping company drops off at your house, you fill up, they haul away and it's waiting for you at your destination when you arrive. They seem expensive at first until you realize you're not having to drive that stuff from Illinois almost to the Mexican border and paying for gasoline the whole way!

[yellowbelle]

Originally Posted by fxstb

I am planning a move to Green Valley area from Illinois. The move will be completed in stages, I won't make the final move until. Early 2017. Any ideas how this can be accomplished with the best ease with low cost is appreciated.

What do your 'stages' involve?

You might want to also crosspost the moving forum for more general advice but the kind folks here might be able to recommend storage options, etc.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by fxstb

I am planning a move to Green Valley area from Illinois. The move will be completed in stages, I won't make the final move until. Early 2017. Any ideas how this can be accomplished with the best ease with low cost is appreciated.

Just did it. I bought a place in Green Valley in March. We put the house in the Chicago suburbs on the market in April. Much to our great surprise, we sold it in May, and made the move in June, at least a couple months before we were ready.

Ideas:

1) MANY houses in Green Valley are sold furnished. You might want to assess how much of the Illinois furniture that you really need to relocate. Since moving costs are a factor of weight AND volume, leaving bulky furniture in Illinois would be advisable.

2) The Green Valley White Elephant store is FULL of stuff moved from the Midwest to Arizona that was no longer necessary. In other words, get rid of all your junk and don't move it.

3) Home prices are starting to increase in many areas in Green Valley. While I would tend to recommend buying soon, that MUST be offset by the cost of maintaining two residences for any period of time. I can tell you it is no fun to be making two gas payments, two electric payments, two cable payments ... and of course if you are from IL, two property tax payments.

4) I paid about $8k to the professional moving company to make the move. I had a few people tell me that I could have done it myself. However, they forget 1) that you need to hire labor on both sides to pack, load, unload and unpack. They forget that it is stressful for people who drive a car to drive a large U-Haul across the mountains and the like 1700 miles. When I ran the numbers, I figured that using a mover would cost me about $700 more than doing it myself. Not worth it.

5) There are somewhere upwards of 100 thrift stores in the Tucson/Green Valley area that sell used furniture and household goods if you need something you did not bring.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by BajaAZ

Yeah. The back and forth thing is always going to be the opposite of easy and low-cost, but it really depends on how much stuff you are moving and how/when you are moving it. If you have a place to store stuff in Green Valley and you will be driving back and forth a few times, then stuff your car full, or rent a trailer (depending on your car and it's ability to do that), or whatever. If not, it'd be cheaper to move it all at once by just renting a single U-Haul and only paying for cross-country gas once. Depending on your vehicle, it's gas mileage, and how long your stays in Green Valley will be, it may be cheaper to fly into Tucson and rent a car than to drive your car back and forth (think about maintenance in addition to fuel costs).

Actually, it is often cheaper to do a one way rental from IL to Tucson/Green Valley as unbelievable as that might sound. I have been getting $250 one way weekly rentals out of Chicago and Cincinnati to Green Valley from Hertz Local Edition (read that as NON-AIRPORT locations). You get the best of both worlds. You can drive using someone else's car and if you have problems along the way, you can switch out the vehicles. Obviously the best deals are on those rentals that bring cars into AZ prior to Christmas and on those that take cars out of AZ after Easter and Spring Training.

[beTucsonan]

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

Actually, it is often cheaper to do a one way rental from IL to Tucson/Green Valley as unbelievable as that might sound. I have been getting $250 one way weekly rentals out of Chicago and Cincinnati to Green Valley from Hertz Local Edition (read that as NON-AIRPORT locations). You get the best of both worlds. You can drive using someone else's car and if you have problems along the way, you can switch out the vehicles. Obviously the best deals are on those rentals that bring cars into AZ prior to Christmas and on those that take cars out of AZ after Easter and Spring Training.

Good info - I had always been under the impression that one-way rentals were generally more expensive. Certainly when I looked into it while moving from Pittsburgh it was prohibitively expensive. If I was the OP, then, I'd definitely keep that on my list of options.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by BajaAZ

Good info - I had always been under the impression that one-way rentals were generally more expensive. Certainly when I looked into it while moving from Pittsburgh it was prohibitively expensive. If I was the OP, then, I'd definitely keep that on my list of options.

They generally are.

However, the car rental companies have too many cars in AZ and FL at the end of spring training and have a need for more cars as the snowbirds arrive.

Gone are the days of $5/ day one-way rentals that they used to have 5-10 years ago.

BTW, Tucson car rentals are outrageously high January 25th - March 5th due to the Gem and Mineral Shows.

[RichCapeCod]

We have a home on Cape Cod and just purchased a home in Green Valley. There are quite a few "thrift stores" in the area, and the furniture if very nice and very reasonable. Having said that, I don't see how you're going to make a decision without first doing some serious home-shopping. Prices are still moderate in Green Valley and I don't expect them to jump up any time soon. Plenty of homes come on the market at a regular rate. Take your time and make the correct choice for you.

Best of luck,

Rich