The four things that decide a New York apartment move
Almost every New York apartment move comes down to the same four variables, and none of them is how much furniture you own. They are: the certificate of insurance, the elevator, the stairs, and where the truck can stand. Get those settled in advance and the day is straightforward. Leave any one of them to the morning and the day is not.
The certificate is the one that most often stops a move at the door. Managing agents each have their own requirements, and a certificate written for one building is routinely refused by another. We ask for the building and the agent as early as possible and issue it to their wording.
Service elevators are booked in windows, frequently weekday daytime only, and many co-ops do not allow weekend moves at all. Walk-ups have no window but they have flights, and a fifth-floor walk-up is a crew-size decision rather than a rounding error.
Parking is the quiet one. In most of the city the truck works from the street and the crew carries further than they would anywhere else, which is time, and time is what an hourly move is made of. We would rather tell you that up front than let it appear at the end.
What we ask before we quote it
- The building and the managing agent, for the COI wording
- Elevator or stairs, which floor, and any reservation window
- Any restriction on move days or hours in the building rules
- Where a truck can legally stand, and how far the carry is from there
