International Freight Shipping - Costs and such

Erandus

So. This may be a strange one.

I may have a need to ship the contents of a large 4 bedroom house from the south island of New Zealand to the midwestern United States. This will basically mean I need to get a shipping container. I don't have a fucking clue how to go about that or what sort of costs are involved. Companies ship shit via container all the time, so while I assume it's "expensive", my terrible logic leads me to believe it can't be "outlandishly" so, or it wouldn't be worth it.

Does anyone know anything at all about this sort of thing? Am I looking at like.. 5 thousand dollars? 10? 50? I assume it's going to be $texas, but I want to hear some actual input. I've requested some online quotes from a few companies, but they respond via email and I don't know how long it will take for them to generate a quote. I just need a very broad ballpark idea on what I'm getting myself into.

HALP.

illig

i've had coworkers relocate from the US to Europe and back, and i seem to remember that the prices were about $5-10K for a house move via container (that included packing/unpacking IIRC)...

the biggest issue was that their belongings took several weeks to a month to arrive... so for the 1st month you basically had to live out of the suitcase you brought on the plane

Erandus

Aside from the time the shipment is generated, the transit time is not an issue for me. I don't care if it takes a year. The contents of the house would need to be packed up within the next month or so, but after that point, the stuff can sit around for months and months and that's no big deal.

So, you're saying ~$5-10K including how much? That was for assistance packing the container at the origin residence and unloading it at the destination?

chromdom

I'm in the freight industry, so I can tell you with some authority not to bother asking here. Call an international mover. Any advice offered here is going to be off 5-200%. Seriously, without know a lot more specifics, it's going to be really hard to tell you anything. I don't know how fast people answer emails in NZ, but at our company (we're business to business only, not home movers, sorry), we make sure they get answered same day.
Make a phone call, at least get the ball rolling on it, rather than waiting for an email.