How Online Moving Quotes Save Time and Money
In the pre-Internet days, if you wanted moving quotes you had to pull out the phone book and call the companies you thought might give you the best deal. Now that there are Web applications that can give you online moving quotes, however, your search can be conducted at Internet speed.
Getting multiple moving companies quotes over the Internet is an obvious way to save time and find the best price. But did you know that not all moving quotes web sites are the same? Some will give you estimates based only on information that you enter online or give in a follow-up phone call. It might seem appealing that the process is so simple, but that simplicity can be deceiving. That’s because there’s danger lurking in moving quotes that aren’t based on walk-through of your home and visual inspections of all the items to be moved.
The number of possessions you have to move won’t ever be the same as anyone else, even if you were to live in the exact same home model. So there’s no way that any company can give you an accurate price without seeing all the items that need to be moved. Your three-bedroom home may have minimal furniture and few decorative items, while your neighbors could have furniture covering every wall and personal items everywhere you turn. It stands to reason that the neighbor’s household would cost a lot more to move than yours, since each additional item requires both manpower and space on a truck. But a company that gives estimates without on-site inspections has to make sure their costs are covered, so their moving quotes would by necessity be padded to cover any three-bedroom house, including your neighbor’s. In effect, you would be paying for the fact that some people have a lot more to move than you do.
You can also get into trouble if you’re given non-binding moving quotes without understanding that they’re just estimates, not firm bids. Binding quotes turn into contracts when accepted, which protects you from prices going up. The price would only change if any of the estimate details change, such as the number of items or the moving destination or route.
Even with these caveats, there’s no question that using online moving quotes is a great way to save time and money. Just keep in mind that you should always have in-home inspections and get binding estimates!
Getting multiple moving companies quotes over the Internet is an obvious way to save time and find the best price. But did you know that not all moving quotes web sites are the same? Some will give you estimates based only on information that you enter online or give in a follow-up phone call. It might seem appealing that the process is so simple, but that simplicity can be deceiving. That’s because there’s danger lurking in moving quotes that aren’t based on walk-through of your home and visual inspections of all the items to be moved.
The number of possessions you have to move won’t ever be the same as anyone else, even if you were to live in the exact same home model. So there’s no way that any company can give you an accurate price without seeing all the items that need to be moved. Your three-bedroom home may have minimal furniture and few decorative items, while your neighbors could have furniture covering every wall and personal items everywhere you turn. It stands to reason that the neighbor’s household would cost a lot more to move than yours, since each additional item requires both manpower and space on a truck. But a company that gives estimates without on-site inspections has to make sure their costs are covered, so their moving quotes would by necessity be padded to cover any three-bedroom house, including your neighbor’s. In effect, you would be paying for the fact that some people have a lot more to move than you do.
You can also get into trouble if you’re given non-binding moving quotes without understanding that they’re just estimates, not firm bids. Binding quotes turn into contracts when accepted, which protects you from prices going up. The price would only change if any of the estimate details change, such as the number of items or the moving destination or route.
Even with these caveats, there’s no question that using online moving quotes is a great way to save time and money. Just keep in mind that you should always have in-home inspections and get binding estimates!
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