National move - long distance - how to find a moving company?

Holy cow, that's a lot of wood. You really have to consider selling off all our IKEA furniture on eBay Classifieds / having it cleared out, and then driving to IKEA locally, and taking the rest down with 1-2 trips in a Sprinter. Because currently we don't have any incredibly high-quality furniture here. It's mostly IKEA. And for 10k € I can pretty much furnish myself newly and appropriately. o_O

I can only say what friends who are currently emigrating do. They only take the bare essentials with them and buy new there. All the quotes they got were so expensive that, for example, you can just refurnish yourself at IKEA. They sold/gave away the old stuff. The rest went to the trash. For them it was about a distance of about 1400 km within Europe. The staff for that was just too expensive. They now have a driver from a company who drives the small truck with the stuff there and takes the car back again. A crew with 1-2 trucks would have been way too expensive.

All I can say is what friends who are currently emigrating do. They only take the absolute necessities with them and buy new things there. All the quotes they got were so expensive that you could, for example, buy new furniture at Ikea. They sold/gave away the old stuff. The rest was sorted into the trash. For them, it was about a distance of about 1400km within Europe. The personnel for that was just too expensive. They now have a driver from a company who drives the small truck with the stuff there and takes the car back again. A crew with 1-2 trucks would have become way too expensive.

Yes, I see it this way right now too. It seems to me as if I were paying €6000 for people to drive my €80 IKEA chest of drawers down there. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to my beautiful, old Hemnes and buy nice, new Hemnes down there.

Maybe a homebuyer also takes on some things that already fit........

Yes, I see it that way right now too. It feels like I’m paying €6000 so that people will move my €80 IKEA dresser down there. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to my beautiful, old Hemnes and buy some nice, new Hemnes down there.

You should definitely inquire with the company I sent you by email. You probably have a bit more stuff than we do, but it would really be surprising if you had to pay more than €3000. Because we only moved in November, so I can’t imagine that they’ve raised their prices that much since then. If you get a quote, you can still decide what to do. It probably also depends on how much lead time you have. We also briefly thought about just throwing things away and buying new stuff. But apart from environmental factors, some furniture at IKEA wasn’t available for months and we couldn’t live without a sofa for three months in the new place. And we really didn’t feel like going on an eBay Classifieds odyssey in these times. We did buy some furniture used for kid number two after the move, but that wasn’t really cheap either, because we had to rent a van again and drive across half of Bavaria on several weekends to pick up the furniture (and usually had to disassemble it first at pickup, which with bigger furniture like wardrobes or changing tables isn’t done in ten minutes, and then reassemble it at home).

Moving companies in Berlin have also had a hard time for a few years now. In the past, people (felt like) moved in Berlin once a year, now everyone clings to their old rental contract no matter if the apartment fits or not. That they are now even accepting jobs in entirely different places only surprises me a little...

Always form a chain with novices (something professionals don’t do), it saves an incredible amount of energy, especially when it involves several floors.

I consider that a myth :)
When I, as a novice who has probably already participated in extensive moves more than 10 times myself, see such a chain of moving helpers, I am hardly motivated to even play the helper role. The most pointless and annoying task during a move is to be a link in the chain :)