Moving to another state. Way too many options, help please?

April 16, 2015 4:36 PM

I took a job that means we are moving everyone from north of Boston to north of Philly. This means packing up one house to sell and then moving everything to a new one. We have started working on the selling and buying aspects, what we don't have any clue about is how best to do the packing and moving. Suggestions please?

We are moving this summer, but the realtor wants us to get our house decluttered ASAP (we've got two kids and a lot of junk so this is going to be a big deal). As far as I can see our options seem to be:

1) Rent a storage unit somewhere nearby, put stuff in that while we try to sell the house, then hire movers to get everything from our house and the storage unit and move it to PA.
2) Get one of those pod things, just start filling it with stuff as we declutter the house and then finish packing up everything into it when we actually move.

As far as I can see, and please correct me if I'm wrong, option 1 means we have to move stuff ourselves to the storage unit, which will be a pain as some furniture does need to go into there, and we have to coordinate moving the two separate places come time to move. BUT it does mean that we won't have a big container sitting on our property when we are trying to sell it. Option 2 allows us to spread out the moving, and gives us easy access to our stuff in case we absolutely need to get into things, but it does mean we are doing all the lifting and packing and everything ourselves, which is less than optimal. Plus we'd have the thing sitting on our property while we are trying to sell which is somewhat unsightly.

Before this all our moves have been between apartments so we never had to move stuff out to make anywhere look good and we did it all ourselves. But this time we definitely would like people to do stuff for us if possible. Other people who have moved, which option is better and why? Also any suggestions for companies to use for any of these concepts is much appreciated.

posted by katers890 to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Best answer: Why can't you get a pod, fill it as you declutter, then get the company to store it (which they do), then sell the house, then pack everything else into a 2nd pod (with movers if necessary), then move both to new house?

That's what I'd do.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 4:50 PM on April 16, 2015

If you're moving an entire house, there's no way that you'll use just one pod. Go ahead and get one now to declutter and then have them take it off-site. You can always go and get things out from the location where the store the pod until you decide to move it. If you don't manage to fill one up, you can still have them take it away until you're ready to finish filling it.

Here's my best advice, though. Be absolutely brutal in throwing things away or donating them. If you have such a cluttered home that the realtor wants you to clear stuff out for the showings, you probably have lots of things that you can live without. Moving is always an unpleasant undertaking, but getting rid of lots of unneeded stuff makes it easier to pack and unpack.
posted by quince at 4:57 PM on April 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

How old are your kids and how's the real estate market where you are selling? Unless you must sell before you buy, and can't live in a rental in Philly, why not move out and then list the house? You could get a fresh coat of paint on the walls and have it staged.

This was what my realtor suggested recently in a similar situation.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:37 PM on April 16, 2015