Ballpark cost for move & tipping movers?
Hi everyone. I saw the recent posts re tipping movers. We are moving in about a month. I called flatrate and they came by and quoted me a fee of $3450 to move our 1500 squarefoot 2 bedroom apartment. It is in a walkup (with a few large items up a spiral staircase as well)….
Hi everyone. I saw the recent posts re tipping movers. We are moving in about a month. I called flatrate and they came by and quoted me a fee of $3450 to move our 1500 squarefoot 2 bedroom apartment. It is in a walkup (with a few large items up a spiral staircase as well). Is that a fair price???
More importantly, if we go with Flatrate (or any other company that charges a similar rate), are we really expected to tip 20%? That would be nearly $700! That seems a bit excessive, dont you think?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated….
We are big fans of “Moving Your Way Moving”. They were referred to us by friends for a local move and we have referred them to half a dozen others. Everybody has been very happy with them. They charge by the hour.
718.788.4920
Ask for Igor.
They were also recently featured in New York Magazine.
New York Magazine – Best Cheap Movers
Published Mar 3, 2008
Moving Your Way
718-788-4920 or 212-832-5576 movingyourway.com
Those man-with-a-van offers that litter sidewalks and clutter message boards promise cheap, reliable moving, but they can break your spirit with hidden costs—suddenly there’s a mileage charge?—and surly workers. Not so with Moving Your Way, Igor and Karla Mironov’s twelve-year-old Park Slope moving company. Their crew members are pleasant and punctual, and they move with the urgency and athleticism of Olympic wrestlers—and have even been known to throw in a few extra rolls of tape in a pinch. For larger spaces, the heavily Russian-accented Igor will show up on-site for bids. And the final price is, unbelievably, always the same as the quote. A one-bedroom apartment costs from $260 to move, and larger apartments range from about $430 to $650. The tip is up to you.
i had flatrate give me an estimate. they are very professional, a guy comes over and actually inventories all your crap. i think i got a quote for $1600 (this was a move of 2 separate apartments to a house). i called movers not shakers and they undercut the bid to like $1300, so we went with them. of course, once you factor in the 20% tip we were almost back up to what flatrate quoted, which is why i wasn’t totally indignant about the tipping business (just annoyed they’d be so cagey about it).
Cobblehiller, funny you should mention the bathroom issue. One of the guys we used “dropped the kids off at the lake” on his way out, which plugged up our toilet and made it overflow. It was disgusting. I had completely forgotten about that until now. So I guess I do have one complaint aginst the Israeli guys we used.
And FWIW our move was about a three-hour drive.
If you are actually interested I think I have a receipt at home and can probably give you the name. It would take a few minutes to find, so I won’t look unless you actually want the name.
Oh yeah, I gave each guy a $50. which now that I’m calculating it is 19%. They worked their behinds off and it was an absolutely frigid day. They even managed to throw a queen boxspring up to a guy who caught it from the second story window because it wouldn’t make the narrow turn up the stairs.
Flat Rate USED to be the cheapest. I’d used them in the past and were always very professional and reasonably priced. When we moved from an apt. to our house in January they gave us a rate quote that I pointed out was almost double what they charged us to move essentially the same items from one apt. to another 2 years prior. I even showed him the receipt (which surprised the heck out of him).
He lowered the rate but not substantially. Gave me all the lines like that’s a busy day, all my trucks are in use, your have a stoop and a second story blah, blah, blah. We ended up using them because I didn’t want the hidden price hassels and I know they do a good job but I did feel like they scammed us.
I can only surmise that back when they were a smaller company they were reasonable now that they’ve caught with the public as being a good company they are jacking up their rates comparable to the big boys.
You can find better. Moishe’s is also very good.
i recently did a local move from a 1,200sf apartment to a brownstone, using moishe’s (yes, they actually are quite good). it included packing most of the kitchen and some other stuff, and involved a fair amount of stair climbing. the total cost was around $2,500 ($2,100 + $400 in tips), and the movers did a great job.
the estimate you received seems excessive, even adding in an extra hour of travel time.
Way too high a quote. Despite the OP yesterday I would highly recommend Movers Not Shakers. I packed myself, and they moved my packed-to-the-rafters (I really mean that) large one bedroom in about 3 hours (moved just a few blocks away). I can look up the amount I paid and tips tonight and let you know what they charged me.
They moved a friend to DC, and she was really happy.
No damage, and they fixed a table for me that was wiggly. And they were very professional. (And no poopy bathroom – just some dirty hands!)
That sounds high to me as well. Having been through a huge move just this week, here’s my two cents. I got a quote from Flatrate to move us out of a 3200sf 4 story house just outside NYC, put the stuff in storage for 2 weeks and move us into our new house. Their quote was $8,000 if we did all the packing ourselves. While the number didn’t seem excessive to me, I found another local mover based in our town, who came highly recommended, and their estimate came in at $5,500 total – $3,500k to move us out and $2k to move our stuff from storage into the new house. The actual charge for the move out was $2400. I don’t doubt that Flatrate would do a good job but there are a lot of good ones out there who won’t be as expensive. Tipping 15-20% on the cost of the move is pretty standard, apparently though I think on a huge move, closer to 15% is fair (any thoughts?). We had a crew of six and they worked like dogs. We tipped $400 – just over 15%.
Get a couple more estimates. We used Big Apple a few years ago when we moved out of the city. they were also very good but couldn’t accommodate our time frame this time around. And do your homework….go to the Better Business Bureau site and read the complaints!!!
Hmmm… Interesting, as I thought that Flat Rate was supposed to be the cheapest. The move is not local, but not that far. We are moving about a 45 minute drive away. The quote did NOT include any packing (other than furniture and the like).
Any other input?