Do you hate to move?

When people come to me to discuss buying a house, I am not being negative when I ask them “why?” Buying a house is not easy; neither is moving. After I have done my job, and the work that gets them to the closing table is done, there is still the job of moving in.

According to a recent survey by Unpakt, 23 percent of Americans, when surveyed, said they would rather forfeit their hard-earned vacation days for two years in lieu of moving. Moving is that toxic to people.  Yet Americans move an average of 8.2 times in their lifetime.

88 percent of Americans chose to move by themselves rather than hire a moving company. There are a lot of reasons for this, some real and some just plain fear. According to Unpakt, almost half (46 percent) of Americans are afraid movers will steal their belongings during a move. 69 percent of Americans fear that movers will damage belongings during a move. In my experience, movers are not nearly that dishonest or careless. I am aware of only two cases where my clients had valuable items “lost” during a move. Damage is more common, but I would gauge that at about 5-10 percent of the moves I hear about.

The most common problem with movers -- the problem of damage – frequently can’t be helped. When moving large, heavy objects, things happen. Here are some common moving mistakes. (Reputable companies have insurance that will cover repair of the damage that was caused.)

1.     Dropped furniture can cause damage to the furniture or the walls of the house. It is not uncommon for walls to get scratched and dinged, stair balusters to get broken, or windows to get broken.

2.     Plumbing fixtures can cause trouble around a move, whether the movers are touching them or you are. Frequently washing machine faucets have leaky valves. Homeowners wouldn’t know about the leak until the machine is removed. Then, the new owner finds a puddle. The solution is to buy caps for those faucets so that you can be sure there will be no leaking.

3.     Another plumbing incident that happened to one of my clients involved a mover who broke the ice maker line when he scooted the refrigerator out of the way of the back door.  When the refrigerator was moved back in place, the line was leaking and had to be replaced. An emergency plumbing visit was a tiring end to a tiring day for the new homeowners. 

In terms of the cost of moving, one frequent complaint from consumers after using a moving company is that they paid more for the move than anticipated. This is likely because of hidden fees, given that many moving companies use estimates rather than exact price quotes. Of Americans that paid more for their last move than initially anticipated, 57 percent paid upwards of $175 all the way through $1,000 more for the move than expected.

Unpakt is bringing moving pricing into the 21^st Century. The information age has make easy to compare costs, receive guaranteed prices and access customer reviews when booking travel or searching for good restaurants, so the same should be true of booking a move and finding a reputable mover. Unpakt is now providing these services. Sounds like a good idea. I hope my clients try it out, so I can write some more about it.