NKSK

Please could you post approximate costs incurred if you have moved within a city recently? (4 beds, 2 baths, normal households)

(Trying to work out the cost difference between
1. renting unfurnished for two years, stocking the house and then moving all our things to our new house and
2. renting furnished for two years and then buying a property, having minimum removal costs but then buying all our things for the new house.)

Cheers

Trevglas

We moved from Canberra to Newcastle and basically we hired a van and moved ourselves. The rental charges were something like $200 for the day (it was a very long day), plus fuel.

By way of comparison, when we moved from Newcastle up to the Gold Coast, we used Wridgeways. We packed our own stuff, and Wridgeways charged us $2,300, which included all boxes, and also covered storage of our gear for up to 28 days.

Bella3

We recently moved within the same suburb in Perth. It cost us $95 an hour for the removals. We basically moved everything but the large pieces of furniture ourselves. The removal company took an hour to load and an hour to unload - BUT charged us for 3 hours! 1 hour travelling time to/from their depot which wasn't mentioned when we booked it. Anyone looking to start a business - look at removals in the Joondalup area - there's got to be a market as the 2 companies in the area were fully booked, and so we had to go further afield and got charged the extra!

gedge

We moved within Sydney, only 2 bed 1 bath etc.
Charged about $80 per hour for 2 men and van. The time includes depot to depot, so best to get someone based near one of the two houses.

We did lots ourselves to make it quick and easy. It amounted to four and a half hours, including about 1 hour travel. I paid them for 5 hours cos they wouldn't take the beer we offered.

One of the guys was old enough to be my grand dad, and it was hard to watch him struggle under the weight of some of our stuff. I was sucked in, and ended up working harder than expected!

Koza

If you can move in 3 hours, you are extremely lucky! Last time it took us (removalists, rather) 11 hours!
It was a sad story, too, since the removalists we booked initially didn't come, we realised it at 9pm on Saturday, so finding someone at such a short notice and for Sunday wasn' t an easy task... Luckely, Minimovers saved us , but the price was $1300
I used to move Melbourne to Sydney for $900.
The lesson - don't book small operators if you want to avoid such a disaster. Generally within one city it should take about 5 hours, at 75-110 $/h. Plus boxes. You can buy them (from movers or other sellers) at $3.50 ea, or spend some time and forage for the supermarket ones (monitor and dog food boxes are the best )
Insurance is another matter. Big companies will give you usually "on the spot complain" insurance, that is they will repair brocken bits if you tell them straight away. I guess, all operators have "rollover" insurance. Or you can buy more comprehensive relocation insurance from your contents insurer.

ALternatevely, you may rent a truck for 120-200$ a day, with hydraulic lift. But it will be VERY slow, sometimes (no, often ) doorways are so narrow in older houses, it's very hard to move furniture or fridges through them. Professionals do it 10 times faster. And if you have friends to help, and someone breaks his back, you may be in for a big trouble.
Good luck !

PS. It's not easy to rent something furnished! I am pretty sure the first option is the one. Becides, employer often pays for relocation.