Moving Into a New Apartment: Your Comprehensive Guide

Moving into a new apartment is huge a deal — whether it’s your first time or your 10th time — because it can create an opportunity for independence and freedom, change of environment, sense of home, new beginnings, financial responsibility, or personal growth.

While a new apartment can bring all these wonderful achievements, it requires careful planning and preparation for a smooth move. Our comprehensive guide will give you everything you need for all aspects of your apartment move.

The Essentials of Apartment Moving

When it comes to moving into an apartment, you should consider why you want to move. For example, are you moving because:

• Social and community changes
• Career changes
• A fresh start
• Adulting on your own for the first time
• Personal growth

Why Proper Planning Matters 

Moving into a new apartment requires some careful organization and preparation. You need to figure out what you plan on bringing with you to your new home and what you’re leaving behind. You also need to know how to pack all your belongings. 

Finally, you’ll want to know prior to moving day as to whether your apartment complex has any moving day rules — such as reserving an elevator, a stairs-only apartment, or parking regulations.

Apartment Moving Checklist

To get you started, we’ve created an apartment moving checklist PDF for you to download. This will help keep you organized. You’ll know what to do prior to moving day, during moving day, and after moving day. 

Three categories to keep in mind when preparing for a move are: 

Packing your belongings

Hiring professional Moving Help

Cleaning your apartment

Packing Your Belongings

You’ll want some time to pack your belongings. The more items you have, the more time it’ll take to pack them all. When deciding which items will come with you, it can go into four categories: 

1. Keep
2. Donate
3. Sell
4. Toss

Hiring Professional Movers

Unless you plan on lifting and moving heavy items on your own, you’ll want to find moving labor. Luckily, you can use moving labor from Moving Help. Moving Help is Marketplace powered by U-Haul.

You can find reliable, affordable, convenient, and safe moving labor on the Moving Help Marketplace. The price you see is the price you pay with your moving quote because Moving Help doesn’t have any hidden fees.

Find your moving labor Service Providers today, so our Service Providers can get your move done in an efficient manner in the future.

Apartment-Specific Moving Guides

Every apartment is different. Each apartment size will require a certain number of moving boxes, a certain number of paper packing tape for moving boxes, and a certain moving truck rental or storage containers.

 

Hiring Apartment Movers

Rather than trying to find apartment movers on your own, you can find moving labor for your apartment with Moving Help. The Moving Help Marketplace has more than 2.5 million reviews. Some tips to consider are:

• Read the reviews because some providers have hundreds to thousands of reviews about the different services they offer.
• Know your budget so you can determine whether you can afford moving labor.
• Are you hiring providers for just loading and/or unloading service, or do you need packing help?
• Do you need Safeload coverage?

Cleaning and Preparation

Whether you’re moving into a new apartment or moving out of an apartment, you’ll want to clean your old and new place. Don’t know where to start? Check out our “Apartment Cleaning Checklist” article.

 

Cleaning Tips

You should deploy a top-down strategy. This way, you can clean your whole apartment in one swoop. Dust and dirt tend to settle on higher surfaces and gradually make their way down. By starting at the top, you avoid any dust particles or debris landing on surfaces you’ve already cleaned. 

To learn more about earning your cleaning deposit back, check out our “How to Get Your Cleaning Deposit Back” article.

First Apartment Essentials

If you’re moving into your first apartment, read our “First Apartment Checklist: The Ultimate Guide” article. This guide will help prepare you for what you need and could need for when moving into your first apartment. 

Don’t have time to read the whole article, download our First Apartment Moving Checklist PDF.

Must-Have Items for Your Apartment

Some must-have items for your apartment include:

• Mattress
• Bedsheets
• Silverware
• Dishes and cups
• Towels
• Toiletries
• Couch
• Coffee and end tables
• Toolkit
• First-aid kit
• Cleaning supplies

Additional Apartment Moving Tips

Some apartment moving tips include:

• Notify your current landlord
• Label and color code boxes
• Walk through your apartment with your landlord

If you want more apartment moving tips, check out our “Apartment Moving Tips” article. Want some more tips and tricks? Read our “Best Way to Move Apartments” article.

Smart Packing Strategies

When you pack your moving boxes, you’ll want to label specifically what is inside each moving box. Writing “Kitchen” on 15 moving boxes isn’t helpful when trying to find your cups. 

You also want to color code your moving boxes. By color coding boxes, you, your friends, family, or movers can quickly put each item into the appropriate room. Rather than asking you every single time where a certain box belongs, the person can just go ahead and put it in the correct room.

Transitioning from an Apartment to a House

You may have an opportunity in life to move from living in an apartment to living in a house. To help get you started, you can read our “Moving House Checklist: The Ultimate Moving Plan” article. 

You can download the Moving House Checklist PDF that way you’ll always have the checklist with you.

Apartment Resources to Help with Your Next Apartment Move

Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced pro when it comes to moving to apartments, preparation and organization is needed for a successful apartment move. Moving into a new apartment is easier with our apartment resources. 

You can download our helpful PDFs or bookmark our articles for future references. Find your supplies with U-Haul and your moving labor with Moving Help today.