Is £10,400 a normal removal quote for a local five-bed move?

[ramamamadingdong]

I am planning a move from a 5-bed house with garage, some home gym equipment and outdoor furniture, to a similar-sized property that's 2.5 miles away.

Got a quote from my local removal company (great reviews) and nearly fell off my chair. £10,400 including full pack (it's cheaper for a fragile-only pack, but not significantly).

We're in Suffolk and in a fairly affluent town. Is this what it costs these days, or did I look like a total mug when the guy came around to measure up?

They don’t want the job. We have done a lot of moves, inc UK-US and Scotland-NI, and have always had a full pack service. I can’t speak to the UK-US move because we didn’t pay for it so I have no idea how much it cost, but I can tell you that our Scotland-NI, full pack, 5-bedroom house move was less than half your quote. (And we were moving from a very affluent area of Scotland where costs tend to be a bit higher)

In 2012 We had a move within Scotland, 4-bed house, moving about 20miles, and the quotes ranged from £990 - £8000 for exactly the same service! The ones who quoted £8000 didn’t want the job so effectively priced themselves out of the market, and I guess if we had gone with them, it would have been worth their while due to the massively inflated cost they were charging us.

We have always had 3-4 quotes/surveys done and then generally gone with the middle one.

Ludicrous. Even Pickfords wouldn't charge you half that.

No.

It's stupid though. Why don't they just be honest and say "do apologise but we're incredibly busy" if like you say, they don't want the job. Surely asking for an inflated price looks worse for any company

We have just been quoted £1400 for a similar size house which includes them packing as well

That’s obscene!! We moved from a 4 bed house 10 miles with LOADS and paid £1800….

What did your other quotes come in at?
Surely you got more than one?

That's very expensive.

We had good service and a fair price from Alan Ross in Darsham (think they cover the whole county).

How much gym equipment?

Lots of weight? Dismantling?

Please get more quotes!

We paid £4500 ish for a 5 bed to 5 bed move about 18 months ago with full pack. 90 miles distance, midlands. They're having a laugh and you need to shop around.

I wonder how much the gym equipment is adding to the cost?

But on face value its obscene. Get several more quotes.

I moved to Copenhagen from Bath with a 4 bed house and a lot of stuff £6.8k using a top end international mover in 2020 and same cost back in 2022 needing customs carnet -
they don’t want the job but have no idea why they just don’t say it

If you have a home gym and outdoor furniture, depending on items, that alone takes up a whole vehicle before you even consider beds, sofa, major appliances…etc.
You’ll need multiple trips and/or multiple vehicles, possibly both. When you consider insurance and fuel for those vehicles, man hours and business costs, it add up.

I wouldn’t call it unreasonably expensive but if it’s unaffordable then that’s it, you’ll have to find a different company or do it yourself.

Crazy amount! We moved house in November, 3 miles down the road with a packing service and paid £2.5k.

We will definitely get other quotes. This was the first. I just wondered whether it was likely to be in the right ball park. I'm delighted to find it's not, though pretty disappointed in the local company.

Thanks so much, will try them.

That figure with a nought at the end removed would be about right £1000.

It cost us way less than that to move back to the UK from SW France!

The gym gear is a couple of exercise bikes and a squat rack. He said the rack could be moved in one piece once the weights were taken off it so I can't see that's a big addition to the cost.
He said all the household goods/furniture would go in a big lorry, and then the garden & gym gear would be in a smaller van. So one trip to the new house for each vehicle.

Nope, that's fair enough. Exercise bikes are usually heavy but it's nothing out of the ordinary.

I am in a home gym FB group and some people have more stuff than a commercial gym now, hence the question.

We haven't moved for 10 years but moved about 5 times, always fully packed. Never paid more than £1500, even moving S Yorkshire to Greater Manchester and GM to Newcastle

Exactly this, I'm an electrician and will massively over quote for work I don't want - then if on the rare occasion my quite Geta accepted I just sub it out and take the profit - but usually they go elsewhere.

I paid 2 guys on gumtree £100 to move my big items 2 years ago! Did the rest myself (not for the faint hearted mind)
10k? I might have to change careers.

Blimey did they put the decimal point in the wrong place?