I am planning to move 3 bed house from Melbourne to Brisbane. Any advice and experience of others who might have done this before ? What factors I need to keep in mind while moving ? Any advice on good movers ?
Advice needed moving from Melbourne to Brisbane
chrismatt on 14/03/2020 - 11:03
Last edited 14/03/2020 - 11:38 by 1 other user
Last edited 14/03/2020 - 11:38 by 1 other user
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I am planning to move 3 bed house
Will the house fit in said truck. Normally they need to be cut up into manageable sections. This is a very expensive exercise. Might be cheaper just to buy a different house in Brisbane.
Is the house empty or full of ……….. ?
Oh lol, I didn't think OP meant moving the actual house. Maybe they do?
Op never mentioned, could be a LEGO house
Advice
Thankyou for spelling correctly. I really appreciate it.
What factors I need to keep in mind while moving
Factor in the cost of moving 'stuff'. Some things are better value to sell here and buy new at the new location.
For example, a fridge might cost you say $200-300 to transport up, now if its a 15 year old fridge that is near death, its better to hock it here and buy a new one in QLD. Same for anything large, beds, couches etc.
But it depends, if you just got a new $2000 fridge and you'll only get $1000 if you sell and it $300 to transport it, then its better value to ship it.
Of course all the above depends on if you're paying for removalists, if work is paying then who cares, just book a decent one and move.
Thanks . This is very helpful
Do you plan to move the whole house (structure) or just the contents?
Just the contents
Dispose of all umbrellas
Nope, its the opposite. Buy umbrellas.
Get a mover to do it for you, packing and transport. Pay for insurance. Check all goods within 24 hours of delivery and claim insurance for anything damaged in transit.
I was thinking of Kent
I used Grace in the opposite direction a few years back, much of a muchness I think.
Thanks. Can I ask roughly what did they quote ?
@chrismatt: It was 9 years ago and I only had a 2br town house but it was around 5k plus insurance. My work paid for it so I wasn't too concerned with the cost.
Had a horrible experience with Kent moving Sydney to Melb. They are the cheapest of the big movers and there is a reason for this. I ended up getting moved a day late (they didn't turn up and no one could tell me on the day what was happening, they just assured me they were coming then at 4:30pm they turned around and said they aren't), they turned up in the arvo instead of the crack of dawn, only two men instead of the three I wanted, and I had to help them a LOT otherwise it was never getting done. Then there was a delay at the other end of about 5 days. Support was hopeless until I escalated to a state manager that WASN'T NSW or VIC and he was shocked. I ended up getting a 30% discount or something like that so for me it was worth it, but I was very lucky we had family we could stay with or we would have been sleeping on the floor for almost a week.
I moved with Grace once (but my work paid for it) best interstate moving experience I've ever had (best moving experience ever really). But YMMV if you are not paying top corporate dollar.
I moved from Sydney to Mel - a single person. Pack and send service. a bit expensive but on-time and ok condition of my plastic containers.
- So when you move the charges are based on size. So if a box is L shaped you get charged for a rectangle. what I experienced.
- Download an app to organize contents section-wise eg: kitchen items- like a checklist
- Insurance for sure
- Good quality boxed for heavy items [not plastic ones from Kmart] - supermarkets might have few giveaways
- Make sure to home or old clothes to stuff around expensive items. Handling is not good sometimes.
I m thinking about moving . can you help how you decided on the house and how you chose the suburb, please? thanks
What app do you recommend for organising?
Moving Organiser iOS. its decent
Are you planning to move to Brisbane ? I look more at constraints to start with and then look at what I like :-). For example, I dont like congested places, I don't like commuting far. I like safe neghbourhoods, so one could check local crime websites. I also like to check the local contacts to see the overall view of various neighbourhoods.
Thanks for your reply ! Hope your transition will be smooth. All the best !
Get quotes from 3 international movers to ensure you will have high quality packing to prevent damage (there is an international standard) and will generally include 1 month of storage free. This is good if you want to pack, move up to temp accom and search for a place before you commit. I would think about 3 months storage and the additional cost from mover. Take photos of every room and contents of cupboards before you pack to remember where thing were before they went into the mover box (room and generic labelling will make hard to remember). Cost is by volume, so if you have large horrible piece of furniture, get rid of it before moving. Insurance is offered by moving company, but you can purchase separately cheaper (like 1/3 of what they offer). Take valuables and anything you need in next 3 months with you.
Great points. Thank you.
I did this 9 months ago.
1 - do not use Grace! I paid $14k for them to pack and move my stuff. Sooooo much was damaged.
2 - use a removalist that travels by road. Mine was packed into 2 containers and shipped by rail. Avoid rail as I believe that is a big reason why so much of my stuff was ruined.
3 - take insurance with https://www.removalsinsurance.com.au/html/. They are the best priced plus claiming with them was easy. I was paid out $15k for my damaged stuff. Just make sure to read any fine print as some things were excluded.
Very helpful. Thanks so much.
I moved a 3 bed + study contents from Melbourne to Sunshine Coast (Noosa) 4 years ago. I got a number of quotes and narrowed it down to two, each just over $4K, one by rail container (with truck at either end) and the other by interstate truck. Ultimately I chose the latter, using a small family business actually based in Mildura. I was expecting a crappy old furniture truck to turn up, but they actually had a very flash prime mover. They pre-supplied boxes, I did the packing, and they did the loading and unloading. They were flexible about delivery, enabling me to drive my car up and do a pre-settlement inspection, settle and take possession. The driver waited on the Gold Coast (I think he had family there) until I was ready. Note, I carried our computers and some of the odd shaped fragile stuff in my car. Only damage was a small scrape mark on the fridge plastic door handle which I didn’t notice until weeks later, and didn’t worry about.
They were fantastic, flexible and pleasant
Their website and Facebook are a bit basic Caristos Removals & StorageI also got my partner’s cat freighted up, so I can advise on how to do that as well!
I have two bunny rabbits.. What do you suggest ?
The cat would have been very difficult to take by car, plus we had two nights motel and seven nights in B&B. The cat was flown up before we departed Melb, and picked up at Sunshine Coast Airport by a local cattery who cared for him until we were ready for him to move into the new house.
With rabbits, you might weigh up taking them by car versus flying, but you have a bigger problem … pet rabbits are illegal in Qld.
You might have to rethink the rabbits
This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing. Looks like a lot of people are recommending the truck rather than train. I will give them a call. Did you say, you drove the car ?
My partner and I have two cars. After the truck was loaded with everything other than an old mattress and some bedding, we drove my car to Noosa. Two overnights on the road up, and had a B&B booked in Noosa for a week while we handled pre-settlement stuff. A few weeks later we flew back to Melbourne, slept on the old mattress while we cleaned up the old house and settled the sale of it. Then drove her car up to Noosa, enjoying a coastal holiday along the way. There was a lot of care in planning the logistics, but it worked well and was very cost effective. Of course, we were dealing with a purchase in Noosa, and a sale in Melbourne. Your situation may be different.
Insurance-wise, my memory is a bit vague, but I’m pretty sure our home contents insurance gave us coverage. I can’t remember if it was the insurer from the Melbourne property, or the one for Noosa, but one of them did. With the usual excess of course. The freighter has public liability cover.
Fully insure all…. pack everything as if it will be dropped…. get a reputable mover
Sure thanks.
What is it with most of you people? Can't you see this is a genuine question. What's with all the smart arse answers all the time? Some of us would like to hear from others experience.
There are so many trolls in this group unfortunately.
Congrats by the way. I used Kent 4 years ago and did the Melbourne to Brisbane move. I packed all the boxes myself so saved a bit of money. They were very good and decent pricing. Picked up and delivered the items with a worry. It cost about $5K for a 4bedroom house, fridge, tv etc. I would recommend using them again.
Thanks so much. This is encouraging.
your welcome mate. Brisbane is awesome place to live.
I'd suggest not moving to Qld. I did the same move up here in 2007 and for a few yrs was good. Then it turned into Hell's kitchen, the heat is just too much to deal with anymore. We are working on moving back to Vic sometime before next Hell's heatwave of summer.
@chrismatt - I hope you are doing well. I wanted to ask which moving company did you end up using and how much did it cost? thanks in advance
Me and my partner are moving to Brisbane soon as well.
Incidentally, all our plans changed due to the COVID restrictions. We couldn't travel the entire year due to the border shutdown. Ended up continuing to work from Melbourne :-)
hi Chris , thanks for your reply ! oh thats unfortunate. yeah its been a very hard year for all of us. All the best :)
Factors:
have you packed your stuff?
have you put it in the truck?
does the truck driver know your new location?
did you remember to unpack the truck?
Sorry… couldn't resist