Hillsborough Movers for Whole-House Moves on Winding Roads

Hillsborough is unusual even by Peninsula standards. The town's zoning calls for lots of at least half an acre and houses of at least 2,500 square feet, and it has no apartments, condos or townhouses and no commercial district. Every move here is a house, and most are big ones. The roads reflect it: quiet, curving, often without sidewalks, climbing west from the flatter streets near El Camino Real toward Interstate 280 and the Crystal Springs hills. Burlingame and San Mateo wrap around the east and south sides, so the nearest stores, and the nearest place to buy more boxes, are a few minutes away in a neighboring city.

Because almost every home here is a four-bedroom or a large three-bedroom, the usual crew is 4 movers at $235 an hour. Smaller homes or a partial move, such as a guest house or a few rooms going into storage, can run with 3 movers at $175. Billing has a 3-hour minimum and then 15-minute increments, and weekends are priced the same as weekdays. Full service already includes blankets, tape, floor protection, wardrobe boxes that come back to us after the move, and taking apart and rebuilding beds, tables and shelving. Boxes and wrapping you keep are charged as used. For a house this size we come out for an on-site estimate first.

Hillsborough moving cost by home size

To help you budget, we compared homes of the same size across our recent local jobs. Use the table as a planning guide; the actual charge is the rate times the hours, counted in quarter hours.

Figures use the middle half of billed hours from local moves we completed for direct customers July through October 2026, drive time between homes included, account and full-pack jobs left out. Boxes and other supplies are extra, and no job bills under 3 hours.

Whole-house moves on winding roads, with long or steep driveways, gates and narrow turnarounds, can run past the top row, so we size them from an in-person walk-through.

The house is often well back from the road. A long or steep driveway, a gate, a narrow turnaround or a low tree canopy all change where the truck can go. Before move day we want to know:

• How long the driveway is and whether a full-size truck can turn around at the top.
• The gate code, and who to call if it fails.
• Whether the road in front has a shoulder where a truck can stop without blocking traffic.
• Any landscaping, lighting or pavers along the drive that a truck should not touch.

If the truck cannot reach the door, we park on the road and the carry gets longer. That is time, and it is better planned than discovered.

• Pianos: grand pianos always go with 4 movers. Uprights need 4 when there is a flight of stairs.
• Art and mirrors: point out the pieces that matter most. Framed art and mirrors travel wrapped in blankets and standing on edge, loaded where nothing leans on them.
• Televisions and media rooms: we take TVs off the wall and can reconnect them, but we never mount them.
• Wine, garage and storage rooms: these take longer than people expect. Walk them with us at the estimate.
• Staged or partial moves: if some of the house goes to storage, our storage is a flat monthly price, never discounted.

Hillsborough is about 30 miles northwest of downtown San Jose. Interstate 280 runs along the town's western edge and El Camino Real along its eastern side. The drive to you is free. If you are moving to another Peninsula city more than 10 minutes away, the drive between the two homes is billed double under California rules. The first job of the day on the Peninsula arrives between 8 and 10 AM, with a call from the crew about 30 minutes out.

• Baywood sits right across the line in San Mateo, older homes on smaller lots.
• Burlingame is to the north and east, with apartments, bungalows and a busy downtown.
• San Mateo covers everything from Bay Meadows condos to hillside houses.
• Millbrae is a few minutes north, around its BART and Caltrain station.
• Foster City is east across the bay flats, planned neighborhoods on a lagoon.

See also packing and storage and long-distance moving.