Written by: Kate Becker
Date:

Thinking whether to hire professional movers or to move on your own? Many people ask that question before moving. Unfortunately, there isn’t a straight answer to what option is better. Most of the time it all comes to whether you want to put a lot of effort to save some money or you want to pay to avoid stress and physical work. But there are many other factors that can affect your final decision as well. To help you decide, Verified Movers has prepared this professional moves vs. DIY moves statistics review. Take a look and see what you can learn from it.

Deciding on professional moves vs. DIY moves depends on many things

As we already mentioned, deciding whether to hire professional movers or to move on your own depends on many things. Of course, the most obvious reason for wanting to move on your own is money. Moving is not cheap. Especially if you are moving cross country or internationally. Therefore, many people decide to cut their moving costs by organizing a DIY move.

That might be a good idea to save some money. However, before you decide to do so, you need to do some calculations. To do so, you will need to find some reputable moving companies suitable to perform your type of relocation and get their quotes. Next, you need to do good research and calculate how much will a DIY move cost. Compare the numbers and see how much will you save. Now think how much effort you will need to put into organizing and performing a DIY move. Is the money you save worth the effort?

  • The average cost of a long distance move when hiring long distance movers is $4,890
  • Moving long distance with a 10 ft. box truck rental costs $500 to $1800 depending on the distance
  • Moving long distance with a larger truck rental can cost $2000 or more

The price of your move can be approximately estimated based on the size of your home and the distance you are moving to

It is important to say that these estimates are based on a 2 – 3 bedroom move of approximately 7,500 pounds. Naturally, the prices depend on the size of your moving inventory and the length of your move.

The average cost of moving a 1 bedroom home

  • <50 miles –  $240 – $675
  • 250 miles – $800 – $2,300
  • 1000 miles+  – $950 – $2,900
  • 2500 miles+ –  $1,300 – $3,800

The average cost of moving a 2 – 3 bedroom home

  • <50 miles – $710 – $1,400
  • 250 miles – $1,400 – $3,950
  • 1000 miles+ – $2,100 – $7,800
  • 2500 miles+ – $3,400 – $7,900

The average cost of moving a 4 – 5 bedroom home

  • <50 miles – $1,100 – $4,900
  • 250 miles – $2,050 – $4,700
  • 1000 miles+ – $4,900 – $8,100
  • 2500 miles+ – $8,400+

Compare the numbers you have with the amount of effort that you need to invest and you will be able to decide whether to hire movers or to move on your own

Now that you know a little bit about the prices, you have to compare the amounts that you will save with the amount of effort that you need to invest in a DIY move. But how do you do that? Simply by calculating the amount of time that you will need to complete all tasks and being clear with the amount of effort you need to invest. So you will basically have to go through the whole process in your head and see whether you can do it or not.

Of course, there will be many situations where you will need help. So make sure that you have someone ready to help you out when the moment comes. It can be your friends, neighbor, or relative. It is not important. The important thing is that the person is capable of doing some heavy lifting. Because there will be plenty of that during your move.

a calculator and a pen

Compare the numbers with the amount of required effort

Preparing a moving plan can be a real challenge. Especially for people who are moving for the first time

The first thing that a person should do when preparing for a move is to make a moving plan. However, crafting a good moving plan requires some knowledge and organizational skills, which can be tough for people who never moved before. An experienced person will know what things are needed to be done and in what order. A person who never moved before might have some personal beliefs about how the relocation will look like. But it is usually very far from the actual truth.

How to make a moving plan

If you never moved before and you need to make a moving plan, know that you will need to do a lot of research and reading before you are ready to make one.  This takes a lot of time and requires some interest from your side. If there isn’t one, preparing a moving checklist can turn up to be a very complicated, difficult, and boring task.  On the other hand, if you decide to pay for a full service moving company, they will do all the planning and organizing. They have all the experience that you need to make a perfect moving plan that will ensure a smooth and stress-free relocation. This sounds great. But it is still not worth the money you will save by organizing a DIY move.

Will you be able to pack your items on your own? Here are some common obstacles

One of the most difficult things that you will need to do during a move is packing. Packing is actually one of the reasons why so many people hire moving companies in the first place. But it is not only about putting things inside boxes. The whole preparation process can actually last for weeks before the moving date. Moreover, even if you decide to go through that torment to save some money, no one guarantees that your items will be properly packed so they can withstand the long and bumpy transportation.  Actually, the biggest chance is that your items will not be properly packed and that they will suffer some damage during the move. Here is how the actual DIY packing process will look like.

Determining the right amount of packing supplies is not an easy task. As you are doing this to save money you need to do it right

The first thing that you need to do when packing your belongings is to calculate the exact amount of packing supplies that you will need. This is the first step and immediately you are running into a big obstacle. How can someone who never moved before calculate how much moving boxes to prepare? Luckily these days you can use one of the available online moving box calculators that will estimate an approximate number of required boxes. However, what those calculators will not show is how much bubble plastic to prepare, how many moving blankets, plastic bags, rolls of packing tape, labels, etc.

And that is when the fun begins. If you are doing all this to save money, your goal is the get as least packing supplies as you can while securing enough to pack all your items properly. If you buy too much, not only that you are wasting money, but you are also polluting our environment. On the other hand, if you do not buy enough to pack everything, you will either have to waste money on gas and time to get more or you will have to use some alternative packing solutions that usually do not provide proper protection.

three cardboard boxes

Packing is a complicated process

The packing process can last for days and will seriously drain your energy

Once you finally get the right amount of packing supplies, you still have to put some serious effort into packing your belongings. Wrapping, taping, labeling, and boxing requires a lot of time when you are not a packing professional. And as we already mentioned the biggest chance is that your items will not be properly packed for a long distance move. On the other hand, if you decide to hire professional packing services, your packers will provide quality packing materials, and use them to pack your items securely in a matter of hours. So when you are thinking about Professional moves vs. DIY moves think about the packing process and will you be able to handle it. Here are some average moving box requirements based on the size of the home:

The number of boxes required for packing a 400-700 square feet home

  • 7-15 small boxes
  • 9-15 medium boxes
  • 6 large boxes
  • 3 extra-large boxes

The number of boxes required for packing a 700-1250 square feet home

  • 17-23 small boxes
  • 15-22 medium boxes
  • 7-11 large boxes
  • 4-6 extra-large boxes

The number of boxes required for packing a 1200-1700 square feet home

  • 32-37 small boxes
  • 25-35 medium boxes
  • 16-20 large boxes
  • 10-12 extra-large boxes

The number of boxes required for packing a 1700-2200 square feet

  • 38-42 small boxes
  • 36-47 medium boxes
  • 21-26 large boxes
  • 13-15 extra-large boxes

How will you handle your furniture? Do you have proper tools, skills, someone to help you?

Unfortunately, that is not the end of your packing process. There are more things that can present a big problem when it comes to DIY relocations and that is furniture. To be able to move, load into a truck and move large pieces of furniture they need to be disassembled.  And disassembling furniture means that you will have to move it around and possibly even lift it at some point. To be able to do this properly you will need at least an additional pair of helping hands, proper tools, and knowledge about furniture dismantling. Naturally, some people will think of this as a piece of cake. However, for most, this will represent an obstacle that they cannot cross.

Hiring a moving company, on the other hand, means that your moving crew will disassemble your furniture, safely wrap each piece individually, and reassemble everything upon delivery. Moreover, they will even put the furniture where you tell them.  This is certainly a thing to think about before deciding on professional moves vs. DIY moves.

Getting rid of furniture also represents a challenge for individuals

On the other hand, you can decide to get rid of your furniture and ease your DIY moving process significantly.  However, will the moving process be easier depends on how complicated will be to get rid of your furniture. Decluttering, depending on the extent of it, can be a tiring and time-consuming process as well. So make sure that you take everything into consideration before you decide.

Do you have a piano to move to? Pool table? Heavy safe?

Of course, complications that you will need to go through during a DIY move depend on whether you have some unusual objects as well.  For example, not every house owns a piano, pool table, or a heavy safe. If you are among those that have some of these items, moving them on your own will represent a significant challenge. Do you have someone to help you? Do you have proper tools? Have you ever tempered with these objects? Do you know how to move them safely? If not, hiring moving professionals is the only safe solution.

Can you drive a loaded truck across the country?

Finally, when you forget about all the things that you need to do to get out of your old home, you still have to think about driving a loaded moving truck all the way to your new home.  Naturally, if you are doing a local move this may not be such a problem. But if you are moving cross country, be prepared for some serious challenges. On the other hand, hiring movers means that they will be responsible for the transportation part and that you will only have to think about how to get yourself to your new home.

a man holding a steering wheel of a truck

Are you capable of driving a loaded truck?

Moving statistics

An answer to the professional moves vs. DIY moves question depends a lot on the type of the move. A local move is much easier than when you are doing city to city move or moving interstate.  

  • 15% of people move interstate
  • 1% of people move city to city but within one state
  • 4% of people move locally
  • 6% of people move internationally

When it comes to people who move we are not talking only about residential moves. Actually, individuals take less than half of all performed relocations.

  • 44% are residential relocations
  • 39% are commercial relocations
  • 16% are military relocations
  • 1% other

Final thoughts on professional moves vs. DIY moves

Hopefully, this article will help you to answer that everlasting question. Professional moves vs. DIY moves. We cannot advise you anything more than to think well before you decide to move on your own. It can be turn out to be more difficult than you expected.  On the other hand, hiring a full moving service can be a thing that will allow you to avoid all those difficulties.