First- Rate Moving & Storage

First-Rate Moving & Storage is an Andover crew that Jay, its owner, started in 2015 after working for a small Boston-area moving company. Ten years later, the pattern in its reviews is remarkably consistent: dozens of five-star accounts describing careful, on-time moves with almost no variation in tone. The range of work is broad. Reviewers describe local apartment-to-apartment moves completed the next day after a last-minute booking, long-distance relocations from New Hampshire to Tennessee and from Salem to Laconia, New Hampshire, and specialty jobs the company says it handles directly — pool tables, hot tubs, and senior moves, in addition to residential, commercial, long-distance and storage work across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida and nationwide. A 2025 review describes the team wrapping and moving a 600-pound baby grand piano without incident, and another describes antique furniture moved with, as the reviewer put it, kid gloves. The recent volume backs up the pattern rather than standing apart from it — a dozen five-star reviews landed in the six months before this read, none of them negative, describing everything from a two-day house cleanout after 60 years of accumulated belongings to office furniture moved with no lost pieces. Several reviewers say they've used the company more than once and describe the same level of care each time. One 2024 review notes the company billed by volume rather than by the hour and honored its original quote, which ended up more affordable than expected. The Better Business Bureau grades the company A+, and Google and HomeAdvisor both show averages above 4.9 stars from a combined 119 ratings. The company's website also lists a USDOT number, 3141590, though that figure is self-reported and hasn't been checked against a registry. For a local or long-distance move, including large or delicate items, the depth and consistency of this history is unusual — there's essentially no negative account to weigh against it. The main thing worth confirming directly is how a quote is structured (by volume versus by the hour), since at least one review points to that mattering for the final price.