Most of the time we are bound by pre-commitments and building rules or availability of lifts and we may have no choice but to start at a time which may not be the best time to move.

But if you are have things under control and are flexible with times, below points will help you in your move time decision.

• Afternoon time : Avoid afternoon start time if you have lifts to move and there are strict booking rules. Because sometimes there can be delays starting afternoon jobs, because its not possible for moving companies to finish morning jobs at exact time and they can go over time and take a bit longer than expected.

• Apartments: Check morning allowed start time with your building manager before you book with a moving company.

• Emergency : If you have to move in an emergency or short notice, you should consider moving on Tuesday to Thursday. Monday and weekends are very busy and people book them well in advance.

• Avoid 10/11 am Start : On most days, moving companies do two jobs . Morning jobs start around 7 to 9.30 am and afternoon job start around 12 to 2pm. Starting late in morning will definitely delay the afternoon job start time or the moving company may not be able to cover afternoon jobs at all if they start first job of the day at 11 am, resulting in lost revenue. Consequently most moving companies will refuse 10/11 am start.

• Morning 7/9 am start : Try to start in the morning as early as possible. Moving teams are fresh in the morning and will always start on time. The move will finish in the afternoon and you can do your unpacking and finish all before dark.

• Moving after 4 pm : Moving late will cost your extra and there are not many moving companies willing to start job that late. Tired removalists will be slow and may refuse the job if they do not feel good.

• Inform Moving companies : Be clear about your moving time, and if there can be no delays allowed and accepted , inform your moving company. Melbourne City Movers always take extra precaution when times are strict and make sure our customers are not left stranded and have no-where to go.

When you become aware that you are moving or have to move, you will automatically start thinking about the cost of Furniture Removals. Once you start talking to moving companies you may become aware of the actual or approximate cost of moving or hourly price.

Most moving companies will only provide you an hourly rate and will only give you a fixed cost of moving, if you ask them for it specifically.

Fixed price or Hourly rate , both have advantages and disadvantages, best decision really depend on personal circumstances and the moving company you choose.

Fixed Price Advantages

• You are assured of the total price of moving.
• There are no disagreements or issues about cost at the end of the moving job.
• In regards to long distance moving jobs, you can ask for discount or negotiate a deal.
• Will not go over budget.

Fixed Price Disadvantages

• During costing stage , all moving companies will assess for stairs, lift, parking distance, disassembly & reassembly of furniture and traffic conditions. Assessment will take a worse case scenario approach and so time and cost will be a lot more than what would it would have taken in real world situation.

Hourly Rate Advantages

• Pay for the time spent in moving furniture.
• Can ask the moving to stop at any stage, if you feel you can move the balance of furniture items yourself.
• Can opt out of toll ways and choose alternative transport routes to save cost.

Hourly Rate Disadvantages

• Some people will have anxiety when the clock is ticking and still a lots of furniture is still to be moved.
• Can go over what you budgeted for.
• Sometime people are not aware of extra cost of stairs , tolls and it can hurt a little and spoil the mood at the end of job.

Conclusion : From our experience hourly rate with a rough estimate will turn out to be the most cost effective. Reason being that we work honestly and care for our customers and will not be taking advantage of the hourly rate. For us our customer’s good feedback is too important. But this cannot be true for other companies.

So the decision will depend on your personal circumstances and the moving company you are choosing. May be check the moving company reviews as well before you decide.

Moving Company or a Truck Hire company ?

Many of us have to move a house at least once/twice or more times during our life time, and it always crosses our mind to hire a truck and move all furniture ourselves. You would always think that moving yourself will be cheaper than hiring a moving company. But once you start talking to truck hire companies , you will realize that the reality is very different.

Below are two scenarios for you, so you can understand the cost and other implications for both options.

Moving Company : Moving  a 1-2 Bed house with Melbourne City Movers generally take 2 – 4 hours and cost range is around $200-$400. This includes all the fuel and you get 2 professional removalists, who will do all the moving for you and even disassembly and reassembly of furniture if required. They will have the tools and trolleys to assist and blankets to protect your furniture . Even Transit and public liability insurance is included in the cost , so in case of an accident you will always be protected and the moving costs only start once the team arrives at your pickup address .

Truck Hire Company : There are only a few furniture moving vehicles you can drive on a car license. The most used vehicle on a car license is the 4.5 Ton truck . This truck is suitable for a 1-2 bed house . I checked Thrifty ( Truck Rental Company ) website and their cost for one day minimum hire in Melbourne is around $170 for weekday and $285 for weekend and GST may be extra. Fuel used will be extra cost and in case of a road accident an excess payment of more than $1000 applies. On top of the above you will have to go and pickup the truck and return the truck yourself and move all furniture yourself . The risk of driving on the road and protecting your furniture is all upon yourself. The rented vehicle’s responsibility is on yourself and sometimes a dodgy truck rental company can try to blame existing truck damage on you if you fail to inspect the vehicle at pickup time.

Conclusion : As you compare the costs above , you will see that in some cases there may be a saving of $100 or no saving at all and you will have to go through the hard work of moving all furniture yourself. Although you can drive a 4.5 ton truck on a car license but I think it is not an easy task and not many people will be comfortable driving. Moving companies are cost effective because they have their own trucks and do more than one moving jobs in one day.

So in my assessment, if you are planning to move , it is much better to hire a professional moving company and leave all the moving to them. I do not believe it is worth the risk to try to move yourself. We at Melbourne City Movers are always there for help and our Professional moving teams are the Gold Standard of Moving in Melbourne. Give us a call on  0433147932.

Moving furniture brings its own kinds of issues sometimes. We try to ask as many questions as possible during booking process but there can be many surprises when the actual job starts. Occasionally it happens that we are forced to cancel services on the spot, below are a few of our experiences :

• Rubbish Removals :The houses are not a very good condition and all that is being moved is rubbish, the experiences we had in these removals jobs is that , the boys reluctantly load the rubbish and when they reach the destination , there is no one to pay or take delivery and we are stuck with removal of rubbish. So sometimes we have to explain our clients that we are not a rubbish removal company and cannot help them.
• Health Hazard: It has happened that the smell and filth encountered in some homes forces the boys to refuse the job. We as managers have a responsibility to give our removalists a safe and comfortable environment , and if they refuse a job we cannot force them to do it.
• Safety Hazard : If there are glass and other construction materials scattered around the house, it becomes a safety trip hazard and may be an injury risk to the moving team. The boys have the right to assess and refuse the job .
• Verbal Abuse : Occasionally we encounter verbal abuse at the hands of our clients without no reason at all, if the matter gets out of hand the boys just walk away from job, or in some cases the police had to be called to intervene. Our Moving teams are very respectful and understand that moving is a stressful time for many people, but threat of violence and racial abuse is not tolerated and will result in instant cancellation of job.

Melbourne city Movers have been furniture removalists in the moving industry in Melbourne for more than 10 years. We meet new customers daily and request them to post some reviews for us. After requesting 10 customers only 1 is able to find spare time to post a review. This world is not perfect , delays happen , accidents happen and evil competitor intentions cannot be avoided. So our reviews are a mixed lot and i suppose most companies encounter similar issues to us.

But when you search in google and see more than 500 reviews shown by some companies in Melbourne and that too all 5 stars, it surprises me a lot. And its not just one Melbourne removals company , most companies I see online show these 5 star reviews in huge numbers. Companies are gaming the system to attract new customers and the real customers cannot even post a review on these company’s sites.

I do not pass the blame for our faults here, but jut want to put a few scenarios, where we are negatively judged :

• We are one some rare occasion, late in the afternoon jobs because of unexpected delays in the morning move jobs. We try to allow enough time for both the moves but sometimes the situations are completely out of our control.
• Road accidents and emergencies cannot  be avoided and result is a delayed start. Melbourne traffic cannot be avoided all the time.
• Competitors do not need a reason to discredit others by posting a negative review for their own gain.
• Accidental damages happen during the moves, very rarely though. We do the right thing getting the repairs done and engaging our insurance to help our customers, but unfortunately even after all repairs some customers are unwilling to alter their review, and the site admins do not allow us to post a response about the action taken by us or they demand unrealistic amount of money to just post a reply.
• Some try to milk the system and post negative reviews just to get refunds over falsely claimed damages.

As you can see above, there are multiple occasions on which you cannot escape a negative review, but somehow there are many companies with no negative review over the last many years…. suprisingly!.

Conclusion is that the review system is all managed by software and companies cannot be trusted at all.  All I Hope is that customers are clever enough to understand that this is not a perfect world and companies are laying a trap to catch them.

How Do you Find a way to Trust the reviews ?

Over many years of analyzing reviews i have found a way to find the best moving company in Melbourne :

1. Search for the moving company in your browser.
2. Look for the google reviews for those particular companies you like.
3. Filter the reviews to negative first.
4. Check the date of these negative reviews.
5. Read the reviews.
6. Are too many negatives within a short period of time?
7. Are the reviews consistent and similar to other reviews ?

Based on above you should be able to make decision on the performance of the company. If there are consistent damages caused by the moving company every week, its better to avoid them.