Making the Move
To Your New Home

A growing area of coverage for The Wall Street Journal is what we call the business of life. The intent is to report the latest news in a way that helps readers make sound decisions about their own lives. The new book, "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life," edited by Journal editor Nancy Keates, offers strategies on everything from getting the best medical care to helping a child get into his or her top college.

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With low interest rates driving a lot of buying and selling, there's a whole lot of moving going on, too. And moving is often the worst part of selling your house. The good news is that moving companies, squeezed by tighter corporate relocation budgets, have started to offer white-glove service in an effort to counter their image as china-breaking, price-gouging goons. The extras range from the practical (hooking up your Internet service) to the New Agey (one company will bring in a feng shui expert to help you figure out the best place to put the couch).

Is it worth it? It can be -- but getting an estimate is just as important with pricey movers as it is with the cheaper kind. And sometimes the basics -- taking care of the furniture -- get neglected by companies willing to fold your clothes for you and sign your kids up for ballet classes at the new location. Below is a recent test of three high-end moving companies.

A Really Moving Experience

For our test, we did two short moves plus a longer one, paying for the extras for our test-case families. We picked movers and consultants who promote special services, but also tracked the basics, like how close they came to their estimates and how careful they were with our valuables. Below are the highlights of our truly moving experience, with total prices for the move, along with per-mile charges to help you compare.

Low End

The Mover: Pack Rat Relocation

Price: $1,272, Orlando, Fla., to Tampa, Fla. ($15 a mile)

The Pitch: We're small, but we'll do it all.

Nicest Touch: Designed three different layouts for our living room

When we heard that even the U-Haul people were offering "concierge" services, we were intrigued. So we went to the company's Emove.com Web site, where folks who are moving can hire a variety of services, such as landscaping help and a driver for that rental truck, eBay-style.

After punching in the location of our move and what we wanted (packing help, maid service and personal-shopping errands), we got a list of moving specialists, with estimates ranging from $500 to $1,400, including our U-Haul rental. We settled on Pack Rat, which had testimonials from two dozen happy customers.

Considering the low-end price, we were pretty impressed with Pack Rat's can-do attitude. Our request to pick up a prescription and sweep the back porch clean for the new owners didn't faze the team of three men and one woman, and they promised to fold our T-shirts.

One surprise: They offered to design a furniture layout in our new home, which ended up making our living room look even bigger.

"We'll do right by you," said Ivy Moore, Pack Rat's manager. Indeed, by the time they were done mowing the lawn, we had a yard to make the neighbors jealous.

Still, it's clear the bargain approach has a long way to go. The move had its share of bumps, literally (the hidden shock detectors went off in two of our boxes, and both a dining table and a filing cabinet were damaged in transit). Two of the movers were new, and it showed. They spent 10 minutes trying to squeeze our couch through the door until someone came up with a solution: Unscrew the feet.

Middle

The Mover: What's Organized?

Price: $2,403, Palatine, Ill., to Lake Zurich, Ill. ($343 a mile)

The Pitch: Consultant handles what the movers won't

Nicest Touch: A closet layout that makes it look like we have fewer shoes

One of the newer twists on the moving scene is the professional organizer, with more than 600 nationwide now specializing in relocations -- up 50% from just five years ago. They promise to make the whole ordeal painless by dealing with the movers for you -- while doing all kinds of extra work around the house, like alphabetizing your CD collection or stocking your pantry with groceries. Indeed, consultants across the country say business is booming, from Move-In Made Easy in Oceanside, Calif., (triple the staff since 2002) to New York's Cross It Off Your List, where sales are up 20% from a year ago.

For this category, we called an outfit called What's Organized? which promised it could handle anything from straightening out closets to setting up kids' homework schedules. In our case, they got busy right away, calling in one of several "subcontractors," who got to work on the wrapping. Eight hours later, he was done.

At the new home, the move leader roamed around with clipboard in hand, posting numbered signs in each room to indicate where all of our boxes should go. That didn't impress the movers, including one who told her he'd "never seen this system before." (Her response: "It works -- trust me.") Things only got worse from there: By the end of the day in our new house, with the meter running at $45 an hour, she still hadn't unpacked a box and had misplaced our "open me first" box with basic necessities.

Our move was done on unusually short notice, she says. As much as we loved finding our toiletries organized by type (hair ties, cosmetics), we couldn't believe the bill. To move a four-bedroom home just seven miles, she charged $1,600 -- fully twice what we paid the movers themselves.

High End

The Mover: White Glove Transportation Services

Price: $3,125, New York City to Cambridge, Mass. ($14.50 a mile)

The Pitch: Full service from a national hauler

Nicest Touch: Dropped off our unwanted clothes at Goodwill

By this point, we were ready for a truly hassle-free move, and White Glove, a local affiliate of moving giant Bekins Van Lines, said they could deliver on our special requests -- for a price. The estimate for our 200-mile move to Boston came to a whopping $4,600 at first, though our estimator immediately offered a 30% discount. A little more haggling, and it was a further $230 off, making us wonder if we should have pushed for more.

The company is relatively new to the "concierge" business, but they arrived like veterans in the upscale-move wars, wearing "White Glove" shirts and driving a freshly washed truck. The four-man team took their places immediately, mopping the floors, spackling painting holes, and wiping dust off furniture before packing it. A fellow named Edwin even repacked a box of china after noticing we'd done a bad job ourselves. They wouldn't prearrange our phone service, but told us they were looking out for us (protecting our privacy). "Don't forget to fax my boss to tell them how great I was," one mover said.

Without all these extras, the relocation might have cost us about half as much. But compared with our two other movers, White Glove actually charged the least when you factored in the distance --about $14.50 a mile. More important, though, the team left our house in pretty good shape -- and invited us over for dinner anytime we want. Our clothes were folded, our shoes were lined up and the carpets were all vacuumed. And even though it was 90 degrees, thanks to the air conditioner our movers installed, we were sitting cool.

-- Adapted from "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life," edited by Nancy Keates (Crown Publishers/Wall Street Journal Books, 2005). For more information, please visit http://wsjbooks.com.

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