First let me say I am skeptical of the thought. But as that may be. I might be in the need for one down the road. Have an estate that is going to need to be sold off. Not a ton of valuable or large ticket items. Just more run of the mill stuff. Furniture, housewares, tool and garden stuff, etc. Tell me the good and the bad about the thought of hiring an estate company to come in and sell off in a weekend. Thanks.

No direct experience with them. Have a good friend who is an avid sale shopper (garage & estate). She has also worked estate sales for a friend of hers who has such a company. Her take is that a good company actually makes you money because they know what things are worth and price them appropriately. Getting the stuff sold at an optimal price. A bad company either leaves way too much on the table or overprices things resulting in lost sales. In theory they save you a lot of time, energy, and effort putting the sale together yourself.

I used a mom and pop operation in East Texas last year to clean out my mom's home.

The good was they got rid of everything in a two day sale, after coming in and organizing all the stuff and putting prices on it and displaying it. What didn't sell they hauled of to charitable places, then vacuumed out the house so that it was basically real estate ready.

If there was a bad, it was that "stuff" doesn't bring a lot of money and the folks charge 20-30% for their services.

Overwhelmingly, the BEST thing was I didn't have to be there and didn't have to screw with it any more. A huge load off my shoulders.

We had made multiple trips to and from the house "saving" what we wanted to keep and we were sick and tired of it. Really, all that was left was just old furniture and general house hold furnishings.

The contents are worth what they're worth. And in most case, most of the contents are not worth much. If there are things that have some collectible value, they'll spot them and extract that. They also market through FB and direct email to the throngs of people that run the weekend estate sale circuit, lining up and rushing the house when good stuff exists.

They are very common in this densely-populated area. You sell what you can. Then a "Clean-out company" 1] holds an auction for the rest, 2] then wholesale's what is left, 3] then donates what is still left, 4] then discards the remainder, 5] and finally, leaves the house broom clean.

I used one before moving into the VDBTR. I interviewed a couple of places: a franchise and a self-employed woman. The woman offered a much better deal and it felt like she cared more about my stuff than the franchise did. She and her husband and daughter took care of all the advertising, displays, and pricing. She researched things she wasn't sure of. I got a fair amount for what was sold, and judging by the experience of others I got more--and for less headache--than if I had done it myself.

I had a hard time finding one in NJ but that was 20 years ago. Finally found a husband wife team, looked over what was there and said "We'll do it but there is not a lot of value here" They came with their team, I helped a bit and we had the sale. Very successful, they were shocked. I'm telling this mainly to not be put off by estimates, it can be surprising what can be sold for $$.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
No direct experience with them. Have a good friend who is an avid sale shopper (garage & estate). She has also worked estate sales for a friend of hers who has such a company. Her take is that a good company actually makes you money because they know what things are worth and price them appropriately. Getting the stuff sold at an optimal price. A bad company either leaves way too much on the table or overprices things resulting in lost sales. In theory they save you a lot of time, energy, and effort putting the sale together yourself.

As taught in the Andy Griffith show, “Pay the Man.”

Quality operation will result in satisfaction without the headache. We travel to some and you can easily tell who is best in our market (Blue Moon). Open on Friday’s and Saturday at full price, then Sunday’s remaining pieces are reduced price. You will see a lot of the same people buying on all days.

quote:

As taught in the Andy Griffith show, “Pay the Man.”

did you mean "Call the man!"
from the broken freezer episode?

Be careful and attentive to detail in the contract. Explore in your mind the downsides, and be sure you know what you've signed yourself (and any co-heirs/beneficiaries) up for, since if you're doing this as an executor/personal representative, you might be held liable to the estate for screwups.

Bottom line: It is entirely possible to have an estate sale/auction company come to sell a houseful of goods and you wind up not only getting zero, but owing them, after expenses. I know this for a fact, as my stupid brother managed this feat with my dad's stuff.

Lessons learned:
1) Before you engage with a company, make sure you understand who pays for what, what fees are absolute, and what fees are percentages of the proceeds. Ask them what happens if nothing sells, for example - that'll give you a sense of your exposure to fixed costs. (their advertising, staffing, prep, labor the day of the sale/auction, etc.)

2) Ask what happens if inclement weather prevents many people from coming for the scheduled sale, and what happens if weather prevents anyone from showing up. You might want assume the date gets rescheduled....but that's not guaranteed.

3) Find out what happens to the stuff that doesn't sell. Find out whether all unsold items are deemed security for any unpaid estate company fees. Find out whether the family gets to pick over the unsold stuff. Find out if you get charged for packing and freight on any unsold items taken away.

Assume nothing.

Sorry, that's not quite right. Maybe it would be better to assume that an evil genius, briefed in all aspects of the law, has written a contract hoping to find people who are not paying attention to details at a stressful time, and is geared up to take full advantage of same. Then, politely ask questions hoping to get answers that justify removing that assumption.

Our experience with my Dad’s estate.
We went through segregated what we wanted to keep. My sister had a friend in the estate sale business, he came through and assessed everything, but passed on holding the sale, since his crew wasn’t as close to our location and he didn’t think he had a good return possible. He did offer a one day fee to help us price the major items and give guidance on pricing the lesser stuff, as well as advertising. We had time constraints that precluded waiting on another service, so we used his guidance and held our own estate sale.
It was a lot of work but we pulled it off, and we cleared 30%-40% above what the original estate sale guy estimated.
It can be done, but it is a ton of work over and above the normal effort that a family does going through just getting a household cleared out for the estate sale service.
We will face this again sometime in the future for my mother-in-law, my inclination would be to let a service handle it turnkey.

Assume nothing.

Sorry, that's not quite right. Maybe it would be better to assume that an evil genius, briefed in all aspects of the law, has written a contract hoping to find people who are not paying attention to details at a stressful time, and is geared up to take full advantage of same. Then, politely ask questions hoping to get answers that justify removing that assumption.[/QUOTE]

I thnk that is a healthy approach.

Well when we used a company to clear out my FIL house who was a handyman in upstate NY. We were not present. The neighbor saw them pulling out scraps of cooper and fittings in buckets, that never showed in auction...so we suspected they brought them to a scrap yard and kept the money.

After our father passed and mom was going to move into a home, our family hired an auction company. The childhood home was back in Missouri over 5hrs away so I moved all the things we wanted to keep on a couple of trips, took about 7,000 lbs of "stuff" to the dump and then left the key with the auction company. We decided to auction the house with them too. They only charged 15% I think, along with advertising fee and a couple hundred in labor to set up the sale. Day before the sale I arrived in town at 10pm, everything in the house was out in the yard on tables and covered with plastic. Furniture stayed in the house and was sold in the house. Rain was forecast but it didn't come.

With 2 rings running, the auction took 3hrs and grossed $8K. Alot of things sold incredibly cheap, dad would have bought them all over again if he could have. The real bonus was people PAID to empty the house, then the house sold for about assessed value, as-is, no contingencies, closing within 30 days with a 3% commission. We were very happy.

The furniture went for next to nothing, but alot of it was 1970s-1990s. Two people bought most of it and spent the next several hours loading it onto a 20' or so trailer. Unfortunately, my cousin bought entire furniture sets that I got to help move.

I planned on leaving the next day, but with the whole sale done by 1pm and nothing to sleep on, I just drove back home to Iowa. My total involvement from door to door was less than 36 hours.

One thing that is often overlooked. Is the value of "old stuff". Antiques and such could fetch a premium. Anything from glassware, pottery, signs, toys, furniture,and memorabilia of various sorts could fetch big dollars. It might be worth it to consider having someone who specializes in antiques look at estate items too.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:

quote:

As taught in the Andy Griffith show, “Pay the Man.”

did you mean "Call the man!"
from the broken freezer episode?

Yes, but I changed the term to be more appropriate:

A friend of mine works for an Estate sale group . Since I'm retired she asked me to help out for a while since they were pretty busy and needed some extra manpower . Pretty interesting . This was a small group of two sisters and a couple of their friends . What they do is go in and sell out a house completely . The family takes what they want first and everything else is sold . They organize different rooms according to the subject matter . They have done this enough to recognize items that are of value and some things get appraised like guns , etc. They get a percentage of the sales and unsold items get donated to charity . The trash gets hauled off and the house is left clean .

Just make sure you do your due diligence and choose wisely. A friend of mine failed to do that. The guy they hired kept the money. Found, after the fact, he'd done that to a bunch of others, too. He ended up in court. In the end she'll be lucky to receive a small fraction of what was due her.

Wife did that with her parents house. The only downside was that this particular auction company made some rather large lots out of things and you had to bid on the whole lot. So folks who knew her parents and their possessions and may have wanted a sofa or dresser or something couldn't necessarily buy that - they would have to bid on an entire bedroom full of stuff (including everything in all the drawers maybe) Or All the beds or all the dressers ( I don't remember exactly how they grouped it - just that there were complaints; and she felt like she could have gotten more cash the other way...).


I think we would still do it again if needed. It's nice to just let someone else get rid of everything and send you a small check at the end of the process. I can't imagine trying to get rid of a house full of junk.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
First let me say I am skeptical of the thought. But as that may be. I might be in the need for one down the road. Have an estate that is going to need to be sold off. Not a ton of valuable or large ticket items. Just more run of the mill stuff. Furniture, housewares, tool and garden stuff, etc. Tell me the good and the bad about the thought of hiring an estate company to come in and sell off in a weekend. Thanks.

we have a few companies in the area that do this,

all for a fee (varies) and all will stage the house for you ,


the leftovers typically go to a local auction house,



good,, they do most for you,
bad,, fees, etc,


never used them,


however, when my father passed, we did it on our own,

we staged the house (as in kept everything we wanted locked upstairs or in the detached garage),

any thing 'big ticket' was priced and put in the house on the first floor and basement,

smalls and yardsale type stuff was put on tables out in the yard like a garage sale or yard sale,


we had a friend at a table as a cashier, and a family member or friend on each floor ,
and one outside with the stuff,

brother and I floated around as needed,


we picked a Sat in the summer, and advertised in the local paper, + word of mouth thru church etc, and facebook,


very successful, got ride of a good portion of it at a good price,

the left over stuff from outside went to the local flea market the next couple sundays, and whatever was left at noon when we left was donated at goodwill on the way home,


worked very well for us, some of the inside stuff we had left (not much) was sold on ebay or craigslist,

all gone relatively quickly,


it did take a few days (working here and there, not all day) to stage the house, price everything etc etc,


we slipped the helpers some cash for helping out, and had a nice chunk of cash left over