Two floors apart is still a move. It is a shorter day than crossing the county, but it is not the trivial job people expect, and it is quoted differently.
Everything still has to be wrapped, carried, protected and set down where you want it. What disappears is the drive. What does not disappear is the packing, the lift, the corridors, the door frames and the fact that everything has to leave one apartment before it can go into the other.
Buildings also tend to be stricter about internal moves, not looser. The same lift booking, the same certificate of insurance, the same loading dock window — and often the management wants both apartments covered.
The lift. If your building has one service lift and it is shared with deliveries, that lift sets the length of your move regardless of how many people we bring. Booking it for a block of time, ideally mid-morning midweek, is worth more than an extra crew member.
The second thing is whether the new apartment is empty when we arrive. Overlap of even a few hours changes an internal move from one clean run into two half-runs.
On local moves in New Jersey, these are part of the job and not billed separately:
By the hour. This is how most local moves are priced. You pay for the hours the job actually takes: if it runs long you pay more, and if it goes quickly you pay less. Our written estimate tells you the crew we would send and the hours we expect the job to take, so you know what you are planning around.
At a flat rate. If you would rather not think about the clock at all, ask us to lock in the price. On local moves in New Jersey we can quote a flat rate for the job as scoped, agreed in writing before move day. A flat rate is fixed in both directions: it does not go up if the day runs long, and it does not come down if we finish early. We carry the risk on the hours, and that certainty is what you are paying for.
One or the other, not both. Tell us which you would prefer when you ask for your estimate and we will price it that way.
Garden apartment complexes and campus-style developments are their own version of this. There is usually a drive involved, but it is measured in yards, and the truck may not be able to get close to both doors. That, rather than the distance, is what we are pricing.
Tell us both apartment numbers, both floors, and whether there is a lift at either end, and we can put a number in writing the same day without visiting.
We do internal moves in buildings across Hudson, Essex, Union and Bergen counties and in New York City. Common ones: Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne, Union City, Fort Lee, Newark and New York City apartments.
Related: small moves, studio and one-bedroom moves, and certificates of insurance.