Moving Tips: Dallas Edition
Welcome to Texas! Assuming you found this page because you are here (or soon to be). Did you know that from 2020 to 2022, Texas led the nation with the most population growth (according to the US Census Bureau)? During that time, Dallas-Fort Worth ranked among the fastest-growing metros in the country. Texas is easy to love with a reasonable cost of living, plenty of new homes, kind people, and great BBQ.
What’s not to love? Tolls roads, perhaps, and moving. Have you met someone that loves moving? To make your life a little easier, we assembled a few moving tips. Here are 4 services in DFW to move in less time and with less stress:
- Apartment locators
What is an apartment locator? A locator is like a free matchmaker for you to find a new apartment. They find potential apartment matches for you based on your search criteria. Like having a realtor for your apartment search. What’s the catch? Nothing. Seriously, apartment complexes have a marketing budget to advertise and fill their properties with paying renters. Since locators place new residents, they get paid by apartments. Hence, why locators are free to you.
What do DFW locators do? Locators search available apartments and curate a list for you! Some even send videos and pictures before you set foot on the property. If this interests you, then check out a couple of Dallas apartment locators like SmartCity or Uptown Apartment Locators. Connect with them to share what you need in amenities, budget, and timing. This kind of delegation is a fantastic way to cull your list of new places down to exactly what you are looking for quickly from someone who knows the market.
What is the downside? Maybe you don’t like the selections or visit complexes that aren’t up to your standards. If that happens, you can always continue the search independently. What do you have to lose?
- Utility concierge
Fancy term, what does it mean? A utility concierge is a business that schedules hookups for all of your utilities for FREE. One call and your power, water, and internet are scheduled. The concierge will schedule everything according to your timeline. After services are connected, you take over from there. The bills come to you; you have your own logins, etc. To learn more and see an example of a company doing this in Dallas, look into Citizen Home Solutions.
How is this service free? Technically, a concierge gets paid but not by you. The utilities for which you have a choice — power, cable, and security — have the budget to pay someone to sign up users. Usually, the utilities with alternatives, or competition, means referrals (aka kickbacks). This signup payment to the concierge does not mean you pay a different price for a utility. For example, AT&T Uverse will run the same promotion to you whether you sign up online or have a concierge sign you up.
What about city utilities? Not all utilities will pay a referral to the setup person. No one is getting paid to set up city utilities. However, a concierge will still schedule unpaid connections to earn your business and benefit overall because of getting paid in other utilities.
What about electricity? Texas is a deregulated electricity state. In 2021, sixteen states, including California and New York, had this style of deregulated electricity markets.
So what? This means that you choose who “provides” your electricity. More specifically, you choose who wholesales the power to your electricity line owner. Think of the wholesaler as a steak and the electricity line owner as a waiter — you pick how you want the steak cooked, but the same person will bring it to you whatever you choose. This creates competition for wholesalers. Competition means marketing, which means someone gets paid to sell power to you.
- Professional packing and organizing
Could you use a little organizational help? Be honest, you’ve seen bookshelves and closets organized by color on instagram. Who is doing this? Professional organizers, mostly. You can hire a personal organizer to bring order to your space! These lovely people help you purge items, organize a closet/drawer/room, tidy your kitchen, and much more. Organizers can complete ALL of your packing too! The satisfaction of chaos turned to order is mesmerizing. Check out a local Dallas business that does excellent work: Gracefully Nested.
Unlike the previous two services, this is not free. If you have the budget, then try it out. Hire them to organize and zen out. Or hire them to pack for you. Or both! Choose your adventure.
- Moving boxes
Cardboard is trash, literally. It is a disposable method of transportation that is 100 years old. Moving totes are the new moving boxes. Reusable moving supplies are delivered assembled, do not crush, and keep you on schedule. Need another reason to try moving with totes – how about accountability to unpack on schedule? When you book equipment drop-off, you also schedule a pickup date. Ever used a coach or friend to hold you accountable? reBOX can be that friend. With an equipment pickup date looming, you need to unpack. Using totes also requires no assembly or breakdown and saves so much time. Before you go to buy boxes, consider totes as an alternative.
Better in Texas
Which one of these ideas makes moving better for you? You can put these ideas into practice or keep doing the same old things. Either way, you have information on finding an apartment, setting up utilities, organizing, and getting boxes delivered. Who says moving in Dallas has to be difficult? As the saying goes: you can lead a friend to queso but can’t make them eat. Hopefully, one of these moving tips helps you. Good luck with your move, and God bless Texas.