Apartment & Condo Moving in Hillsboro & Greater Portland
Family-Owned & Operated | ODOT #275978 · USDOT #3604556 | No Stair Surcharges: Published Rates | Google 4.8★ Rated | Open 7 AM–10 PM, Every Day
Apartment moves are sprints with obstacles: elevator windows, loading-zone politics, three flights of stairs, and a lease clock running at both ends. Butterfield Moving runs them every week across Hillsboro, Beaverton, Aloha, Tanasbourne, Orenco, Portland, and the rest of Greater Portland, studios through three-bedroom units, walk-up or high-rise, at the same published rates as every move we do.
No stair surcharge. No elevator-building markup. No month-end surge pricing. Your building's certificate of insurance is handled, usually within an hour, at no fee. And a crew apartment reviewers describe the same way over and over: fast, careful, kind. 'They got us moved between apartments so fast I actually couldn't believe it,' one wrote. 'By lunch time we were done.'
Whether it's a studio across town or a fourth-floor unit with a broken elevator, we've done that one too. Call Patrick or Amy and get the plan and the price before you book anything.
Buildings Are Our Element
Elevator reservations, COIs, loading zones, breezeways, the apartment obstacle course is the part we've already solved.
COI Within the Hour
Most buildings require a certificate of insurance before move day. Ours usually lands in your manager's inbox within an hour, no fee.
No Stair Surcharge
Walk-ups cost the same published rate as elevator buildings on local moves. Stairs are technique, not a toll.
Published Pricing
$150.35/hr for 2 movers, 3-hour minimum, and plenty of apartment moves finish inside it.
Reviewed by Name
Apartment customers review the crew personally, patient with kids, kind under stress, fast on the clock. Live feed below.
Patrick and Amy Answer Every Call
Patrick and Amy take the calls and book the moves, 7 AM–10 PM, every day, with Patrick handling the walk-throughs. Same-day afternoon moves are often possible for 1–2 bedroom units—call early.
Three Bookings That Decide Whether Your Apartment Move Takes Three Hours or Seven
The elevator: before you book the movers
In elevator buildings, the reservation is the move. A reserved, padded elevator turns a three-bedroom into a conveyor belt; a shared elevator on a month-end Saturday turns it into a waiting room billed by the hour. Buildings require the resident to make that booking. We'll tell you exactly what to ask your manager for, and our crew will pad and protect the cab when we arrive.
Decision 1
The boxes: packed before the clock starts
Apartment moves live close to the 3-hour minimum, which means packing readiness is the whole budget. A fully boxed unit often loads, drives, and unloads inside the minimum; a half-packed one pays crew rates to finish packing first. If you want help, our packers run $56.40 per hour per packer on a day before, the cheaper way by a wide margin. First apartment and not sure where to start? Box the kitchen and closets first; they're the slowest rooms, and leave furniture to us; disassembly is included.
Decision 2
The date: month-end convenience vs. mid-month calendar
Leases concentrate everyone's move on the same four days. We don't surge-price month-end. Saturdays bill standard, Sundays bill the published overtime rate, but those dates book out first, and building elevators book out faster. If your lease gives you any slack, a mid-month weekday is the easiest version of your move.
Decision 3
Every Unit, Every Floor, Every Building Quirk
Apartment moving is a category where the unit is the easy part; it's the building that writes the plan. Floor count, elevator policy, corridor style, parking reality: each one affects the right crew, the right staging, and the honest time range. Here's the full territory we cover.
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• Studios and one-bedrooms: often done inside the 3-hour minimum
• Two- and three-bedroom apartments and townhome-style units
• Condos: including HOA notice and elevator-reservation buildings
• Lofts and top-floor units
• Same-complex and same-building transfers
• First apartments, downsizes, and everything between
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• Walk-ups: second, third, fourth floor, no elevator, no surcharge
• Elevator high-rises with reservation windows and COI requirements
• Breezeway and exterior-corridor complexes
• Gated communities and controlled-access buildings
• Broken-elevator surprises: we've finished a fourth-floor move through one
• Tight loading zones and far-from-the-door parking
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• Packing help at $56.40/hr per packer: partial packs welcome
• Furniture disassembly & reassembly: included, beds first at the new place
• TV dismounting + dedicated TV boxes
• Donation and family-handoff stops on the same route
• Storage handoffs via our partner facility in Hillsboro
• Same-day afternoon moves for 1–2 bedroom units, about 75% of the time
How a Butterfield Apartment Move Runs
The estimate call: unit, floors, and building rules
Patrick and Amy ask the apartment questions that change the plan: floor and elevator access at both ends, building COI requirements, loading-zone reality, and how packed you'll be. The full cost picture lands on this call, free.
Paperwork before move day
Your building's certificate of insurance is usually sent to the manager within an hour of your request. You book the elevator window; we'll tell you exactly what to request.
Confirmation, then a crew on the clock you chose
Confirmed the week of and the day before. The crew calls en route and meets you at the unit; on-time matters double when an elevator window is involved.
Protect, then sprint
Elevator pads up, door jambs guarded, floor runners down on rainy days. Then the apartment hustle: furniture padded and wrapped, boxes staged and shuttled, the truck loaded in tiers. In elevator buildings, the crew splits, one feeding the cab, one building the truck, so neither the elevator nor the hourly clock ever waits on the other.
Unload to a working home
Beds rebuilt first, boxes to their labeled rooms, furniture placed where you point, and re-placed until it's right. 'They took the time to make conversation with me and my son… these guys made it a whole lot less painful,' one apartment reviewer wrote. That's the standard.
Walkthrough, payment, done by dinner
You walk the job, pay at completion, cash, check, or card, and get your evening back. No deposit was ever taken to hold the date.
Apartment Moving Rates: Published, With No Building Penalties
Apartment moves run on the standard Butterfield rates, and on none of the apartment-specific fees other movers invent:
Moving crew
standard rate (Mon–Sat, 7 AM–7 PM)
2 movers + truck: $150.35 per hour (most apartment moves)
3 movers + truck: $206.75 per hour (3BR, long carries, big walk-ups)
4 movers + truck: $263.15 per hour
3-hour minimum: studios and 1-bedrooms often finish inside it
Overtime
after 7 PM Monday–Saturday, and Sundays
2 movers: $195.20 per hour
3 movers, $273.40 per hour
4 movers, $351.60 per hour
Holiday rate (3-hour minimum): 2 movers $230.50 per hour · 3 movers $325.50 · 4 movers $420.50
charges
What we don't charge for
Stairs: no walk-up surcharge on local moves
Elevator buildings: no high-rise markup
Month-end dates: no surge pricing, ever
Building COI: provided at no fee, usually within an hour
Deposits: none required to book
Packing help runs $56.40 per hour per packer; boxes at published prices (Small $6.30 · Medium $7.45 · Large $9.45 · Wardrobe $31.55 · TV box $55.85/use). The estimate call gives you the full number before you commit.
Our Reviews
Apartment Moves, Reviewed by the People in Them
Apartment reviews tell you things brochure pages can't: how a crew behaves in a tight hallway, around kids, on the third flight of stairs. Three of ours, unedited.
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Some complexes are mazes, buildings lettered out of order, units hiding behind identical breezeways. One customer watched the crew find their way 'with no problem,' move her in 'with kindness and professionalism,' and still take time to talk with her son. Her words: 'Moving can be an annoying experience, but these guys made it a whole lot less painful. Thank you for helping me and my son build our home!' (Crystal W., Google review)
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A move with two anxious teens, a stressed-out mom, and a building with no elevator is the apartment move at maximum difficulty. The crew was 'quick, courteous and kind… and handled it very graciously.' Her apology for the missing elevator wasn't needed, walk-ups are why the no-stair-surcharge policy exists. (Chelsea M., Google review)
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A move from a third-floor unit to a fourth-floor unit stacks two buildings' worth of stairs into one day, with furniture assembly waiting at the end. The crew carried it, rebuilt it, and earned a four-star review, which we'll take, because honest reviews from hard days are worth more than easy fives. (Cecilia M., Google review)
Butterfield Moving vs. larger regional movers
| Feature | Butterfield Moving | Larger Regional Movers |
|---|---|---|
| Stair surcharge | None on local moves | Per-flight fees standard |
| Month-end pricing | No surge, same published rates | Peak-date premiums |
| Building COI | Within an hour, no fee | Days of processing, sometimes billed |
| Elevator strategy | Coached before, padded on arrival | Discovered in the lobby |
| 3-hour minimum | Honest, many units finish inside it | Minimums plus add-on fees |
| Same-day capability | ~75% for 1–2BR as afternoon moves | Rarely, at panic pricing |
| Crew conduct in tight quarters | Reviewed: kind, patient, gracious | Roll of the dice |
| D&R for apartment furniture | Included, beds first | Often extra or skipped |
| Who answers the phone | Patrick and Amy | A national call center |
| Published rates | Yes | Quote-form mystery |
Greater Portland Apartment Moving Has House Rules
Month-end: the four days everyone moves at once
Washington County leases turn over at month boundaries, which means elevators, loading zones, and moving crews all get claimed for the same handful of days. We hold rates steady through the crunch, but the calendar physics are real: book one to two weeks ahead for month-end, earlier in summer, and reserve the elevator the same day you give notice.
Walk-up country: older Beaverton and Aloha complexes
The Westside's older apartment stock is three stories tall, with exterior stairs and no elevator. Those moves are technique and conditioning, stage at the landing, rotate the carry, high-low the furniture through the turns, and they cost the same published rate as a ground-floor job. The building's age shouldn't be your surcharge. These complexes also hide the Westside's best rents, which means plenty of our customers move into them twice, in and up. Both trips cost the same.
Rain on the breezeway
Exterior-corridor complexes put the weather between every unit and the truck. October through May, the crew works covered staging points, runs floor protection inside the unit, and keeps wrapped furniture wrapped until it's under a roof. Your deposit cares about the carpet; so do we.
Tanasbourne, Orenco, AmberGlen: the Westside apartment corridors
Hillsboro's apartment growth is concentrated along the 26 corridor, with big garden-style complexes and newer mid-rises with managed move-in rules. We know the genre: which complexes want COIs, where a 26-foot truck can legally sit, and how to stage a breezeway move so the crew shuttles boxes while the truck stays loaded in tiers.
The COI gauntlet
More Portland-area buildings require certificates of insurance every year, and a missing COI stops a move at the lobby. Ours goes out usually within an hour of your manager's email address landing with us, no fee, and we'll tell you on the first call whether your building is the kind that wants one.
Loading zones and the parking lottery
Complex parking is designed for cars, not box trucks. Part of every apartment estimate is the staging question, loading zone, fire lane rules, and the far lot nobody wants, because the answer changes the carry distance and the honest time range. We plan it on the call, not in the lot.
Same-complex transfers
Upgrading units inside the same complex feels like it should be cheap and easy, and done right, it is. One crew, no drive time between addresses, often inside the minimum. It still deserves real movers: the stairs, the furniture, and the deposit walkthrough don't care that the move was short.
What Professional Apartment Moving Actually Involves
Elevator craft: reserve, pad, sequence
The reservation gets the cab; the pads protect it; the sequencing earns the time back. Loads stage at the elevator door in cab-sized batches so the door never closes on a half-empty trip, and the crew splits, one loading the cab, one loading the truck. An elevator running efficiently is the fastest vertical transport; run casually, it's a meter running.
Furniture in small spaces
Apartment furniture is disassembly-first by default: beds, tables, and sectionals come apart in the room where they have space to come apart, travel in pieces, and rebuild at the new unit, beds first, always. Hardware bags to each piece. The narrow hallway never gets to vote.
Making the 3-hour minimum work for you
The minimum isn't a penalty; it's a planning target. Boxed-and-ready units with a booked elevator routinely finish inside it, load, drive, unload, and beds rebuilt. The estimate call is where we tell you honestly whether your unit fits the window and what preparation gets it there.
Walk-up technique: the stage-and-shuttle
Carrying every box individually down three flights wastes the crew on stairs. The stage-and-shuttle batches boxes at landings, keeps one mover on the stairs and one on truck loading, and rotates the roles before fatigue makes anyone sloppy. It's why a third-floor walk-up doesn't take three times as long as a ground-floor walk-up, or cost three times as much as a ground-floor walk-up.
Protecting the deposit at both ends
Two walkthroughs care about your walls: the one you'll do for your old deposit, and the one your new building does at move-in. Floor runners, door-jamb guards, and padded furniture protect both, and the crew treats common areas like the lease depends on it, because yours might.
Coverage in shared buildings
The standard Oregon released-value coverage, $0.60 per pound, rides on every move, with replacement-cost protection available if you choose to purchase it. If something is damaged on our watch, we will submit a claim upon request. And because buildings care too: our general liability and the COI cover the common areas your lease makes you responsible for.
The COI, demystified
A certificate of insurance names your building as an additional insured for move day, the manager's proof that a dropped couch in the lobby is our problem, not theirs. It's standard, it's free from us, and it's fast: manager's email on the estimate call, certificate usually within the hour. If your manager has never asked for one, we still recommend confirming in writing before move day, as buildings often discover their insurance requirements at the loading dock.
Apartment Moving Questions, Answered Straight
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The published rates: $150.35 per hour for two movers, 3-hour minimum, and studios and one-bedrooms often finish inside the minimum when they're packed and the elevator's booked. The estimate call turns your unit, floors, and buildings into an honest range.
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No, not for walk-ups, not per flight, not on local moves. We ask about stairs so the right crew shows up, not so the bill grows.
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Usually within an hour, at no fee. Send us your manager's contact info from the estimate call, and we'll handle it before move day.
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If your building has reservable elevators, yes, the building requires residents to book them, and it's the single highest-leverage thing you can do for your own bill. We'll tell you exactly what to ask for.
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Not with us, no surge pricing. Month-end just books out earlier, so call ahead. Sundays and evenings after 7 PM bill at the published overtime rate, same as any other week.
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About three out of four same-day requests for 1–2 bedroom units work as afternoon moves. Call as early in the day as you can.
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Yes, same-complex transfers are quick, often inside the minimum, and still get the full treatment: padding, D&R, placement, and the deposit-conscious handling at both units.
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Yes, included in the rate. Beds, tables, and sectionals come apart, travel safely, and get rebuilt first at the new unit, hardware bagged and labeled the whole way.
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We plan that on the call, loading zone, fire-lane rules, or the honest far-lot answer. If your complex requires a parking reservation for movers, your manager's email gets that request alongside the COI.
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Boxes sealed and labeled, a parking/elevator plan confirmed, and the ride-with-you items, documents, meds, chargers, and valuables set apart in your car. Do those three, and your move runs at the speed our reviews brag about.
Lease Clock Running? Let's Beat It.
One call gets the COI moving, the plan set, and a crew that treats your fourth-floor walk-up like the ground floor, at rates you saw before you dialed.
