Moving costs

[MrsPeacockDidIt]

I’ve started to get quotes for removals costs and I’m shocked at what I’m being quoted and wondered if I’m being unrealistic in my expectations.

we are a family of 2 adults and 1 child, 2 bed ground floor maisonette. Moving 10 minute drive away to a house. We have the usual amount of furniture (sofas, 2 x beds, 2 x wardrobes, dining table and chairs 2 x chest of drawers and a few cabinets). A shed of camping and garden stuff. Plants in pots. I’m not minimalist by a long shot but not a complete hoarder either. We want a full packing service included. We are in SE London in case that makes a difference. I’ve had a quote for £3.5K (local) and today £4.5K (Pickfords). I asked both firms for advice on how I could drastically reduce my moving costs but neither have offered any.

is this reasonable ?

thanks all 😊

Have you had a quote from James Removals? We used them and they were reasonable and fantastically efficient. £1k to pack up a big 2 bed flat with huge loft , 2 of the big lorries plus a 2 hour drive but that was 15 years ago so obviously more now.

OK. I'm quite a lot further north, but moving a 4 bed house on Thursday. Cheapest we got (including packing and dismantling beds, tables and a BIG bookcase) to move 10 mins away was £900. We've gone with the £1500 quote, and ignored the 3.5K.

Can you try another local firm? We asked for self pack and full pack quotes. Packing added about 400 to the cheap 2. Can't remember on the expensive one - I didn't read it very carefully!

Thanks both. I have another 2 firms quoting tomorrow and one moved my neighbour last week for £1.8k so hoping that one will come in a little better. Just wanted a sense check

You could drastically reduce moving costs by packing things yourself, that way they are just loading items into a van and transporting them.

I disagree you can drastically reduce moving costs by packing yourself - in the scheme of things it costs relatively little to pay for packing as well as moving. It's also a lot less stressful. Packing is hard work - they are professionals and much quicker and better at it.

Packing is really cheap compared to the rest, I think we only paid £200 and it was SO worth it. As I said it'll be more now as it was a while back.

Pickfords is always ridiculously expensive so ignore that one. Your other quote is still pretty high though.

I paid £170.00 2 months ago for 2 bed house moving only, 1 hour away. I was leaving behind fridge, washing machine and sofa though. Small local firm I found on Fb.

I agree,Pickfords are always top dollar.

Thanks everyone. Yes I’ve already asked for the breakdown of the packing service and it’s not significant compared to overall quote. Good to know that Pickfords usually come out expensive. Fingers crossed the quotes today from 2 local firm come in lower !

I'm wondering if maybe your location is influencing prices? Things around the city can sometimes be more expensive. I'm not an expert though.
I always try and get a minimum of 3 quotes for anything I want done (if it's easy to get the quotes in a timely manner). If you're getting 2 more that will hopefully present an option that's more affordable. You could always try asking for recommendations on local FB groups too? That's what I do sometimes if I'm looking for a local service provider.

I didn't even ask in the local facebook group. I just searched for movers, and read who had been recommended when someone last asked the question - it comes up fairly frequently in ours!

It is some time ago, but Pickfords were the ones who lost some of our things and damaged others. They were in storage whilst we waited for our new house to be ready. They had to compensate us and send a French polisher to repair the dining table they marked.

I would never use Pickford's. Many years ago they lost some of my parents' possessions when moving them. They hadn't properly packed up the house we bought a few years ago and we kept finding things our vendors were probably looking for. Then they made a hash of our next door neighbour's move as they hadn't taken the restricted access into account. When they moved in, our neighbours had nothing overnight apart from a mattress on the floor and the clothes they were wearing and had to wait two days for them to sort it out.

If you have the will and a few strong people, you could hire a zip can and do it yourself. You could get it done like that for a couple of hundred.

Zip van

No, this should come out at under £2k, including packing.

We hired a van for the day, £93, packed up in the week leading up to completion and then loaded the van by 11am (up at 6am). 3 bed house, with similar amount of furniture. Unloaded everything in the new house by 5pm, got a takeaway and celebrated! Was knackered but doing it yourself saves so much money.

I’d recommend you get as many quotes as possible including from the person who moved your neighbour. We are moving and had quotes on the whole of 3.5-4.5 for a move from a 4 bed house to a 5 which is a few mins drive away. I knew that was ludicrous and then tracked down the number of the guy who moved us previously through a string of phone calls as I had lost his number and he has quoted 1.5k. also includes packing.

Packing is well worth the money. Try IQ Removals who we used recently and our quote was a quarter of yours and we had more items to move