Think of this as an opportunity to purge crap that you haven’t used in years or will never use. If you can afford it always get movers. There is always the risk of injury when moving stuff yourself.

Pods is probably a decent way to go, though I might look into a mover with that much stuff. I think most moving companies offer a similar type of service where you pack it and they move it so you don't have to limit yourself to just them. As for things to be cautious of, this article Moving Company Red Flags - Three Movers has some good info and the most common types of scammy behavior.

Nevermind - thought this was from this year. Hope it all worked out.

Sold our loft building (5 units) and bought another 7 blocks away (mixed use, attorney who has been there for 25 years, 2 lofts). We packed all of our stuff over 10-12 days and had a moving company move us. Saved a good amount of money. Quoted $2,400 to pack and move us, but spent $900 for us to pack, we moved about 70% of the boxes and they moved everything else. It was a bit more expensive in that we had a 350lb steel entertainment center (a 1952 Ford truck bed, stood upright, on casters, as a TV stand and shelves) they charged us a "piano" fee due to needing 4 movers, plus 3 of us.

Do not use any of the "mover apps" online. Wasted a good hour sending emails to 10 or so through the app. Got zero phone calls back.

Look at all of your furniture and make sure its all OK. They left behind 4 moving blankets and tried to charge me $20 apiece for them after the fact.

I bought them lunch, had cold water available at both locations and tipped everyone. It was 97° by the time they were done.

We did a hybrid situation when we moved from Florida to Pennsylvania. We hired a moving company to pack our stuff into a semi-trailer and the semi company drove the trailer to our place in PA. When it arrived another moving company unloaded the trailer into our house. My wife and I are very fortunate to work from home but that also means our work stuff couldn't be handled by anyone but ourselves so we moved that in a 12 foot Uhaul trailer behind my Xterra while she drove her 4runner carrying the dogs and a few personal items we didn't trust the moving companies to handle. A lot of garage items (tools, mower etc.) went into the trailer as well. My wife and I are too old and have too much to worry about and deal with to risk getting hurt moving everything ourselves. Besides, the moving companies moved everything so much faster than we could have ever moved.

have had movers mess up some of my stuff before, but the convenience is nice. maybe pack up what u dont wanna risk being damaaged and use movers for the rest