Smart Move for Seniors

They did a great job. My husband and I took out everything that my mother wanted to keep and left the rest of her property in the apartment.  They just did a great job.  We were able to turn the apartment back over to the property owner and my mom received her original deposit with no problems at all.  The firm is totally reliable.

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I am amazed at how they assisted my clients in dealing with a lifetime of accumulations. They were sensitive and responsive. I had a very tight time frame to work with and they were flexible and exceeded my expectations. I would recommend them to anyone trying to deal with the estate and possessions of an ageing or diseased parent.

I arranged for this company to dispose of the contents of my father's house upon his death. My father was 98 years old and the contents of his small WWII era house were not valuable. I had organized and packed into boxes all similar items from drawers and closets prior to hiring Chaz thinking that this would be similar to a yard sale where all items would be displayed. Instead, it was made clear to me that this was not helpful and would create extra work for them. She stated that it would be difficult to accurately predict the profits from the sale in spite of her looking throughout the house and into the boxes but felt that her usual fee of $3000 or 35% of $10000, whichever was greater, would be suitable. In addition, there would be other optional charges for cleaning the house afterwards and also for hauling off anything left over, either to the trash or to a charity she would select. In addition, another warning flag which i ignored...the company only conducts the estate sale on Thursday through Saturday, not Sunday when many people are off. To summarize what happened...they were very late arriving on their first workday of the week (Monday) and I suspect they worked short days (2)...they did not work Wednesday , the day before the sale. I went over to check and was shocked that only the very major items, mostly furniture, were actually (randomly) priced, many small items were not exhibited, and most items were not priced at all; nothing had been cleaned or dusted. They then apparently conducted the sale...I say "apparently" since I was told NOT to attend or I would be charged extra. After the sale days ended, I had to finally email Chaz to find out what had happened. I was told that she would provide an accounting either that afternoon or the next morning; finally the next afternoon she simply stated that the sale brought in approximately $3200 and that I now owed her an additional $100! I have no idea what individual items sold for or even what happened to them. I would have been so much better off if I had held a small "house" sale with signs on the roads...at least I wouldn't have turned over everything my dad owned so that a stranger would profit. Even if I had sold everything for $500, it would have been better than PAYING money for the privilege of selling my inherited property. I did sign the contract, which Chaz will hold you to, so I can't complain except to warn others. She finally did cancel (reluctantly) the cleaning and hauling part of the contract since the house was sold to a developer and he agreed to have us leave anything we wanted in the house. As far as Chaz' broom-clean advertising, definitely NOT TRUE...the house was a mess afterwards. I was so disappointed...a sad end to my dad's life. I would recommend that anyone who needs an estate sale needs to find someone who will consider the contents before contracting with a one-price-fits-all company. Definitely, poor communications (a number of emails were ignored totally) and no professionalism. I still can't believe that I actually PAID someone to sell and keep all the profits from selling my dad's property...definitely learned a hard lesson.

Smart Move for Seniors seemed to have the capabilities to do an effective estate sale. They priced the items fairly and managed the sale. However, they did a poor job or advertising and the pictures they posted on the web were not representative of the items for sale. During the sale, they did a horrible job of providing signage to the house. During the days of the sale, the paper signs they posted almost immediately blew down. I expected professional signs, but only got hand drawn paper signs. In addition, they had kids working at the cashier table and handling money.
The biggest issue was that two of the Smart Move employees estimated that we should gross about $10,000 in sales. I realize this is a very rough estimate, but they keep reminding me that they were the professionals. However, because of the poor advertising and poor signage, they only reported $3,000 in sales. Coincidentally, the minimum fee was $3,000. In essence , I paid $3,000 to have all my mom's processions hauled to the dump. When I complained about their poor performance and poor marketing and signage, they reminded me that I had to pay an additional $800 for trash removal. 
Selling my mom's house and dealing with her death was very hard, but my biggest mistake was hiring Smart Moves.

Overall, we were not happy with the performance or professionalism of the company.  I have moved several times and the cost of this short move was way out of line with other movers.
It was way out of line because of the length of time it took for the job to be completed.  Not to mention the additional cost of replacing my printer and paying for two additional days of rent because they didn't bring a truck big enough for the move!  If they were professional they surely would have known, from the list we provided them, what size truck they would need! 

Moving is tough.  Chaz and the Smart Move team made my mom's move easy. 

Chaz and the rest of her team do everything from packing boxes to dealing with vendors to coping with the emotional stress of an unfamiliar move.  They are happy to give as much or as little help as is needed.

 In short, Chaz was a hero and made my mom's move possible.My mother was making a cross-country move without any local family or friends who were able to help her pack, get organized, and take care of the thousands of little details that come up in a major move.  

My mom is very lovely, but she was not physically strong enough to move furniture and bedding around, and she wanted a little help dealing with all the vendors along the way (movers, car shipping company, etc).  I was 3000 miles away across the country, and I felt powerless.

Along came Chaz.  Based on a recommendation from a friend-of-a-friend, I called Chaz and she was immediately sweet and understanding.  She asked all the right questions, and was happy to come out and meet my mom to see if it would be a good fit.  My mom and Chaz immediately hit it off (I think my mom actually wanted to bring Chaz with her on the move if she could).  Chaz and her team came in, analyzed the situation, and gave my mom manageable checklists of things that needed to get done, as well as a complete timeline of the moving process.

On our request, Chaz brought her team of expert packers in and physically packed most of my mom's boxes, and took her major furniture out to be sold.  The packing was incredible -- literally zero things broke in a 3000-mile move, and every box was labeled and itemized with a checklist of everything that should come off the truck.

Chaz also connected us with trusted movers that saved us hundreds of dollars --- before we met Chaz, we had initially contracted with another company that gave a low estimate but tried to increase the price on the day they were scheduled to come for the first load of stuff.  With Chaz's help, we fired those movers and instead hired the company that Chaz trusted.  The company she recommended came on-time, on-budget, without breaking so much as a lightbulb.

Chaz was also happy to help manage vendors (it's uncomfortable for a single woman living alone to have a parade of strangers through her house) and even went so far as helping with the move-out inspection with the landlord.  

If you are considering making a move and need an extra set of hands to pack, an expert to deal with vendors, or just need trusted advice, call Smart Move.  I can't thank Chaz and her team enough.  Smart Move got everything under control, made sure everything happened on-time, and even helped save a lot of money in the process.  My only complaint is that Chaz can't help us in California too---we wish there were more people like Chaz.