Review by Kat F.

NorthStar came highly recommended by several trusted friends of mine who had recently used them for Bay Area move. These friends had hoarding tendencies not unlike mine so I knew my belongings would be in good hands when I booked! There are a lot of details to go over when you embark upon the daunting task of a cross country move, and NorthStar has it all figured out so you don’t have to fret about it. I pored over every section on their website that detailed should be done in preparation for the move and made sure I did it.

My husband and I arranged for an estimator to come to our apartment in San Francisco to determine a flat fee amount we’d pay, determined by weight. Presumably the estimator eyeballs the amount of crap you have and then determines the weight, supplies and other moving needs. Our estimator was scheduled to arrive between 9am and 11am, but didn’t turn up until 1:30pm, right when my landlord had scheduled an open house to rent our unit. Once he arrived though, he worked swiftly to eyeball the contents of the apartment, provide a reasonable estimate and hand over the paperwork. 

We had another moving company pack our stuff so everything would be ready for moving day. I’ve attempted to pack my own things before and it ended in tears so I would highly recommend splurging for packing services – it also motivates you to rip the bandaid of unpacking off more quickly, since you don’t know where anything is…

On moving day in SF a team of 5 guys expertly padded the remaining items that my professional packers hadn’t protected/packed, and easily loaded them into the truck. The team was outstanding. They moved quickly, were very careful with my belongings and hardly paused throughout the move to take a break! Towards the end of the loading process I was informed that there were more boxes than estimated and the volume was going to go up. I later emailed the estimator and was able to renegotiate my rate so it’d be closer to the original estimate, since that was what we had agreed to.

Fast forward to the receiving end of the move 2.5 weeks later: you’re given a range of dates since your belongings are bundled with those of other customers who are either on the way or in the same city. I was a little panicky about securing the arrival date as I was juggling a 2 week vacation just before Thanksgiving and absolutely needed to be delivered and unpacked before I left, so at times it felt like I was stalking my moving rep inquiring about dates, but they assured me my stuff would arrive in the given window. 

Our stuff arrived in the nick of time but we had some communication problems with the drivers (understandably, these guys are hired for their driving, lifting and assembly skills and not conversation or negotiation). I recommend going through the dispatchers at HQ when your driver is close to make sure all the details are ironed out. We had 4 guys (2 from the long distance drive and 2 were local contractors) and they moved everything into our house and put it exactly where we requested. Several hours after the guys left, they called to say they had found 4 extra boxes that were mixed up with another move and delivered them to us, among them, several key components of living room furniture. I fully unpacked everything (over 100 boxes) by the next evening and not a single hair was out of place. Really impressive considering the amount of crap that had been crammed in those boxes. Thank you!!

All told, just under $5000 including tip on both sides to move a 1 bedroom apartment from SF to Austin.