Community Chat

[Plaid Pants]

I am looking for advice.

My dad just turned 88, and he is having some issues with his memory. He has agreed to move in to an assisted living facility in our area. We took a look at one the other day, and he liked what he saw.

He knows that it is time to give up the one story house, and I have no interest in it, so it has come time to down size.

I was thinking of holding an estate sale, in order to get rid of some stuff.

I have never done this before, so I am asking all of your super smart ladies for advice.

What should I expect?

What exactly do they do?

What is a reasonable price to pay them?

And anything else that I should know.

Thank-you very, very much!!!

[Lacey1]

I've gone to a lot of estate sales. The homeowners aren't even there. There's a team of people. Everything is organized and prices are marked. They don't readily negotiate prices. I know they keep a big percentage of the take. I don't know what they do with the stuff that doesn't sell.

When my father passed, me and my brother's family held our own estate sale. My God! A zillion people showed up an hour before the starting time-they were pros and tried to get every price down. It was an exhausting weekend. We should have hired the pros!

[terrier3]

Estate sale companies in my area don't agree to hold sales for every household.

When my mom passed away, I contacted a few companies. They all felt that her furniture wasn't worth holding a sale. It was solid maple - but it was EarlyAmerican - not popular in 2002. They wanted to take some lamps and oil paintings and sell them on consignment, but that was it.

The moral of the story - you may have to interview many companies, and still may have to end up using a junk hauler...or have your own tag sale.

My next door neighbors are antique dealers and work at a LOT of estate sales. They are tough on prices...pros are worth it, if they will take on your house.

[SuesCat]

n/m

[cater]

I have helped with so many estate home sales for different family members. We did them our selves we priced every thing that was to be sold from the smallest items to the biggest pieces of furniture and appliances. The main thing is to know what your selling and what it is worth and price items according to their value. Always remember once you open the doors and people start coming through the doors make sure you have enough help to watch every room. You will be surprised how much people try to walk out with and not pay for. Also you can always lower your asking price if you really want to get rid of the item but you can't raise your price. We have always enjoyed doing these house sales met some of the nicest people. the best time is when the day ends and you see all around the home how much you actually sold. We were always care full when we saw the local auctioneer would pull up in their trucks and they always wanted things but didn't want to pay the price. We knew they were going to resale at a higher price.

[LeaLeander]

Everyone I know who has dealt with estate sale operators has found them to be somewhat shady and dishonest. Unless you are running the till yourself (which they won't permit) good luck.

The 90--year-old next door to me died two years ago and her son turned her house over to an estate sale firm (and he found them in a high-end area, one of the highest-income zip codes in the country outside of LA and NYC, not skid row) and honestly for two weeks (while they were in there supposedly sorting and taggng) it was like a pack of grifters was going in and out. Made me sick. Every night they would be brazenly carting off stuff that should have been in the sale; I remember when the head of the firm, a really brash woman, marched out to her car with my neighbor's copper-bottom frying pan in hand, happened to catch my eye and stared me down. She knew I knew.

My neighbor's son didn't care too much because a) he is well-to-do and b) after a rough couple of years with multiple deaths including his brother, he just wanted it over with. But the thievery was tough to watch. I asked a friend who used to be an antique dealer and is very savvy and she said "They're ALL thieves, trust me."

My neighbors and I had a garage sale the same days as the estate sale and one of the men bought an old aluminum tea set I had (1970s, kind of mod, excellent shape) and when I went in to see the estate sale I saw my tea set tagged for 5x what he paid me, right out there on my former neighbor's dining table. He just looked me in the eye.

Sorry to be discouraging and if you just want to get rid of stuff I suppose it would work. It's my understanding they ask for a percentage of the total sales, usually about 50 percent.

But if you have relatives to help and the energy, you might feel better conducting your own sale and maintaining control. That's what we did when my mom died. It was a lot of work for low $$ but the items found good homes and that was important to me.

If your father has valuable items or a collection or things like old radios, guns, typewriters, etc. -- you might ask an appraiser from a reputable antique store or mall to come over and point out or estimate what is really worthwhile so you don't get ripped off. A friend's dad died last summer and the head of a local antique mall put him in touch with a dealer who came over, gave a written appraisal on model cars, antique radios, etc. and offered what my friend felt was a fair lot price based on double-checking via eBay, etc.

Again, it's all on how much the stuff means to you vs. how badly you just need to get it cleared out and get it over with.

[Shorty2U]

I dont know much about it now days. But when my grandmother died they auctioned off her things that we did not pick from (we had our choice to pick pre-auction). I will never forget. Her wing backed chairs (which now days I wish I had!) went for dollars. Her folding web porch chairs went for more. She had a cannon ball bed (also which I wish I had now but did not appreciate back then!) went for hardly anything. But now this was in 1981.

[BellaPaprika]

A lot of small scale ""estate sales"" seem more like glorified yard sales imo. Buyers wanting stuff for next to nothing. A lot of confusion but worse they're not in the yard but inside the house! You have to watch out for theft (from buyers and also anyone you may hire to run the sale). Sometimes you can find someone who will give you an offer on everything at once and remove it all. But the fact is that Americans have amassed a whole lot of ""stuff"" and almost none of it is worth anywhere near what the owners think it is. Also the market on true antiques and collectibles is way down and fewer people have the free cash to buy with. My advice would be to have the family take what they want and rent a dumpster for the rest.

[LeaLeander]

Not a dumpster.

Join your local chapter of Freecycle.org -- it's an online bulletin board, a movement to keep useful items out of the landfill. Some people even hold "free for all" events where they advertise basically come & get it. It's an excellent way to get rid of things even charity won't take, without adding more to our environmental problems.

[BellaPaprika]

On 3/8/2015 Cinder63 said:

Not a dumpster.

Join your local chapter of Freecycle.org -- it's an online bulletin board, a movement to keep useful items out of the landfill. Some people even hold "free for all" events where they advertise basically come & get it. It's an excellent way to get rid of things even charity won't take, without adding more to our environmental problems.

What I had in mind was a service available that provides a recycling dumpster. They are quite common now. They make sure that everything is disposed of in an environmentally correct way. Anything reusable is given to charities that handle such things. Many times people clearing out a house are on a tight schedule and waiting for people to show up and take what they want is not practical.