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Why choose SOS Moving?
What we do:
Backed by years of experience in Orange County, our licensed professionals treat your property with the highest level of care. No stress, no hidden fees—just a smooth transition to your next chapter.
Our Interstate Promise:
Our Commercial Services:
Sure, our movers can bring packing materials and boxes if you need them. Make sure you mention that you need them to our operators in advance.
No, tips are not included, and it’s up to you how much to tip your movers. Tips are always appreciated but not required.
Your apartment moving cost depends on factors, such as the type and size of your property, the complexity of your move, the number of bedrooms, the volume of your items, zip code, etc. At SOS Moving, we offer flat and hourly rates. The hourly rate depends on the number of movers to be involved and the size of the moving truck. Flat rate is based on the volume of belongings you need to move, and it’s the best option for long-distance moves. To know your moving cost, please contact us or submit a form on our website to request your free quote.
You should schedule your move date as early as you can. If you’re moving locally, at least 1-2 weeks in advance, for long-distance moves, we recommend getting a quote at least 2-4 weeks before your move date.
You can choose any convenient day for your relocation, and yes, we can help you move on weekends and holidays.
A safe relocation is our goal, so we’ll provide you with a detailed list of items that are prohibited to transport. It includes perishables, hazardous materials, firearms, batteries, etc. We also don’t recommend packing your personal and irreplaceable items, including family heirlooms, family photos, jewelry, documents, etc. Carry them with you during the move.
We accept cash, all major debit and credit cards, and certified checks. We don’t accept personal checks. There will not apply any transaction fee on card transactions.
Yes, we’ll contact you prior to delivery. We’ll deliver your belongings within the given moving arrival window. In case the window is no longer possible, we’ll also contact you in advance and set another delivery time.
Aliso Viejo, in south Orange County, started as a master plan rather than a town. In 1976 the Mission Viejo Company bought the last 6,600 acres of the Moulton Ranch and drew up a community of 20,000 units; the county approved the plan in 1979, the first homes went on sale in March 1982, and the first residents moved in that November. Cityhood came much later, when Aliso Viejo, by then home to about 42,000 people, incorporated on July 1, 2001, as the 34th city in Orange County.
That timeline explains the housing a crew walks into. Homes here date from 1982 onward, and the plan set out to mix homes, workplaces, stores and services, so the same city holds townhomes with interior stairs, condo buildings with shared entries, apartment communities and detached houses. The crew sets up for the building in front of it: pads on every piece, runners on the floors, covers on door frames and stair rails, and beds and tables taken apart before they go down a townhome staircase. A piano is a separate job with its own page, piano moving in Aliso Viejo.
On public streets, Aliso Viejo caps parking for any vehicle at 72 hours. The moving truck is long gone by then, but the limit does catch the edges of a staged move: a rental trailer loaded over a weekend, or a second car left out front while the garage fills up with boxes. Clear the curb in front of your door before move day, and the crew can park close and keep every carry short.
Association rules are older than the city here. The General Plan calls the Aliso Viejo Community Association the first community-wide property owners' association of its kind in California, one that operates in many ways like a city government, and individual condo and townhome associations keep move-day rules of their own. Before you book an Aliso Viejo moving company, ask your management office where the truck may stand, whether the elevator or a loading area has to be reserved, and whether a certificate of insurance is required. SOS provides a COI for $50; the elevator or loading slot is yours to book with management.
Apartment move-outs come with a local rule of their own. The CR&R guide that the city publishes for multi-family properties tells residents to phone CR&R about large bulky items instead of piling them into the community dumpster; the special collection costs nothing extra, comes on a separate truck, and covers appliances that contain Freon. Get that pickup booked before move day, so the sofa you are leaving is not blocking the path while our apartment moving crews load the things you are taking.
The same guide limits bulky items to what a two-person crew can manage, so a heavy safe or an old upright piano you mean to leave behind needs a disposal plan of its own. Pieces over 300 lbs that you are keeping move with a crew of three and a $150 charge.
Long-distance moves raise the e-waste question. The guide defines e-waste as anything with a circuit board or battery, says it is illegal to put in any bin, and has CR&R collect it when you call. Clear out the dead printer and the old TV that way before loading day, so nothing headed for recycling rides across state lines. If you are comparing long distance movers in Aliso Viejo, California, start with that sort-out, then book the load and the drive through our long-distance moving service.
Moving into a place that is still being remodeled adds one more rule. Aliso Viejo keeps construction and demolition debris under its own code chapter, 7.15, apart from household trash, and the city's solid-waste page carries a construction and demolition permit form. Let the contractor's debris go out first; if the house is not ready on closing day, our storage service can hold the household until it is.
Aliso Viejo Town Center has its future written into the General Plan. The plan's community vision calls for the center to become a true mixed-use urban core, with improved circulation and parking and more diverse uses. A move in or near the center can start in a parking structure or a shared lot instead of a driveway, so settle the truck spot with the leasing or management office ahead of time rather than at the curb that morning.
The plan also put jobs inside the city on purpose, and the city says it is home to the headquarters of several large corporations. Office moves there run through building management: freight elevators, loading docks, certificates of insurance and a date that does not stall the workweek. SOS works Monday through Sunday, 8AM to 6PM, so a Saturday office move stays inside regular hours; our commercial moving page covers how we handle a workplace.
To the north, the city line meets Laguna Woods. Leisure World, the private retirement community begun there in the early 1960s on 2,095 acres of the same Moulton Ranch, is now part of that city. A move across that line is short on the map, but a private community sets its own terms for entry and truck access, so ask its management what it requires before you lock in the date.
| Area or home type in Aliso Viejo | What to plan for on move day |
|---|---|
| Apartment community with a shared dumpster | Book the CR&R bulky-item pickup for furniture and Freon appliances you are leaving; keep e-waste out of every bin. |
| House or townhome on a public street | No vehicle may stay parked on a public street longer than 72 hours; move trailers and spare cars before the day and keep the curb by your door open. |
| Condo or townhome inside an association | Ask management where the truck stands and whether it wants a certificate of insurance; SOS issues one for $50. |
| Apartment or condo near Town Center | Loading may start in a garage or a shared lot; agree on the truck spot with the leasing office in advance. |
| Office in a corporate headquarters building | Reserve the freight elevator and dock with building management; weekend dates fit inside our Monday–Sunday hours. |
Every SOS crew leaves from one place, our base at 5530 Jillson Street in Los Angeles, so all our moving services in Aliso Viejo begin with the same drive. The route runs down I-5 and then SR-133, about 43.1 miles and around 53 minutes without traffic. That puts Aliso Viejo more than 30 miles from the base, so a job here carries a 4-hour minimum instead of the standard 3, and as our rates page puts it, double drive time applies to moves over 10 miles.
The I-5 stretch through Tustin and Irvine, leading up to the SR-133 exit, is slated to be a work zone for years. OCTA and Caltrans are adding a regular lane in each direction between SR-55 and I-405, along with merge lanes and reworked ramps at select interchanges, and OCTA's schedule runs from spring 2026 to mid-2029 south of Yale Avenue and to late 2029 north of it. Lane shifts and ramp changes on that part of the trip will come and go until the work is finished.
OCTA counts more than 275,600 drivers a day on that segment of I-5, and on weekdays a crew leaving the base at 8AM, when our working day starts, drives it in the thick of the morning commute. Plan elevator bookings and building access at your end for mid-morning rather than 8AM sharp; weekend mornings on the same freeway are usually lighter. A same-day move to Aliso Viejo is possible when a crew is free, with the same drive and the same 4-hour minimum.
That freeway trade-off shows up in the price, too. Two movers with a truck cost $119 an hour cash or $129 by card Monday through Thursday and $135 or $145 Friday through Sunday, so a weekday Aliso Viejo job pays less per hour but meets heavier traffic through Irvine, while a weekend job pays more per hour and usually loses less time to traffic.
Aliso Viejo is boxed in on every side. The General Plan lists Laguna Beach to the west, Laguna Niguel and Laguna Hills to the east and Laguna Woods to the north, and all the land around the city belongs to other cities, so even a short local move can cross a city line. Three of those neighbors were cut from the same land: the Moulton Ranch, some 22,000 acres the Moulton family took title to in 1890, was sold off in pieces that became Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel and Leisure World. A move to Laguna Niguel is short, but the parking code and the associations change at the city line.
The western edge goes back to the start: the General Plan describes the 1976 purchase as land adjacent to Laguna Beach. The same sentence places it just west of Mission Viejo, the name the developer carried. A move to either town leaves Aliso Viejo's planned streets and its association rules behind, so give the parking and building rules at the other end the same early look.
