Estate sale experience. Any suggestions?

I have experience with estate sales and the companies that do them for people.

Three things to remember if you're going to use an estate sale business

1) Make sure you see a pricing inventory on every object and item being sold. Do not let them price anything that you don't approve of first.

2) Estate sale people have no respect for boundaries. Even if you mark things 'Not For Sale' they will sell them anyway. Anything you don't want sold get it out of the house.

3) Do not let the estate sale people talk you into not being at the house when the sale is going on. They always tell a people they can't be at the sale. That's BS. The estate sale people always tell a client this because they may have expensive and valuable items to be sold.
The estate sale people put valuable items aside for themselves and they are not put out for sale to the public. They super low-ball the price then tell the person who owned them that they were sold.
I remember the estate sale my friend had when her grandmother passed. This woman had beautiful and expensive antiques. Of course the estate sale company told my friend she couldn't be present. So I went and checked them out. Many of the items that were supposed to be for sale weren't. They found their way to the estate agent's car. The estate agent bought them for next to nothing. In fact, we saw her grandmother's dishes and her tea samovar that she brought from Russia, for sale at an antique market where he had a stall. He was charging a lot more than he paid for them.
Never trust estate sale people. You can handle your own estate sale without bringing in a company.

We all accumulate so much stuff over the years it is often overwhelming at the end of life or when preparing to downsize or move to a "senior-type" type facility (AL, NH, etc.)....There are various companies that actually specialize in this just for seniors. We found some good ones talking with top relators in our area, especially if the house too needs to be sold along with getting the contents out of the home. Top selling relators often have connections with reputable "downsizing" or "estate sale" companies they work with, check w/them.

Document everything, taking pictures, keep pricing lists, have the company take credit card, Venmo, PayPal, or other types of clear sales charges for any reporting that may be needed later (such as if the LO needs to spend down for Medicaid). Avoid cash transactions, and yes pay any taxes that may be required. Again for potential later Medicaid qualification which has a 5-year look back provision, not a good idea to try to "hide" assets from any sales.

Some things (figure this out first) may be moved to your LO's AL unit, but figure out what is allowed (rugs often are not, trip hazard) and what actually fits. Pick only a few loved items and if necessary, a small storage unit can be rented to store some things your LO cannot yet part with. The rest is sold or goes to charity.

Sadly, many items have little to no value. Most younger folks have no interest in things such as large china cabinets, nor the china or crystal in them. I checked out the value of my mother's beloved china on the "Replacement's website" https://www.replacements.com/sell-to-us and found out "it had $0 value" that No One wanted her pattern, so I took the 12-place place setting with all the service platters/bowels etc to charity. Same w/many of her figurines and endless collection of tchotchkes...It was just useless stuff.

Having gone through this exhausting experience of trying to eliminate a life of collected stuff, my husband and I are starting to cull and clean out as much as we can now so it is NOT left to our kids. In Sweden they call this "death cleaning." Sound morbid/terrible, but actually at some point we all need to stop accumulating stuff and get rid of it so it is not left to those that survive us. Here is an article on that topic. I am doing this in waves. It took 60+ years to accumulate all our stuff, so I cannot expect to get through it in just one year but that is often how much time loved ones have to clear/clean out an estate. We all need to think about this before it becomes a huge burden to those left behind. https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-swedish-death-cleaning-should-you-be-doing-it-ncna816511

Hire a reputable estate sale company. They'll have people who know the realistic value of your mom's things and will price them accordingly. If they're really worth their salt, they'll have a hauler who can take out everything that doesn't sell.

We hired a woman who specialized in my parents' area. She brought in her people five days before the sale and they staged everything, priced it, and had everything ready to go, including garden and garage items. She also has an email list of 1,500 people, didn't dicker on pricing, and had the whole thing running like a top.

We ended up with 500 people going through the sale in one day and made $17,000 before her 32% commission (which was worth every penny). She also had a hauler come in who cleared out what didn't sell (a lot of it, sadly) for $1600.

Two days after that, the Realtor's contractors came in and started sprucing up the house. It sold about three days after it went on the market, and we walked away having made a tidy profit.

When I cleaned out and sold my mother's home after 45 years of accumulating, I called an estate company to take a look. Immediately I was told that there was not enough value in her possessions to make it worth their while and I should just do an estate sale on my own.

I took that advice and ended up making about $500.00 after tons of work, cleaning, organizing, advertising and an entire day spent dealing with people who only wanted to nickel and dime everything.

About half of the stuff got sold and I donated what was left.

My advice is that if an estate company doesn't want to do a sale, then just donate. I'll never have another estate sale or garage sale. I'm done. I'd rather give it away.

I did this years ago. My Mom lived in a senior living facility that started with independent living, and you could work your way "down" as needed. When she moved into the MC section the last weeks of her life on Hospice care she was down to the one room of last treasures. We called an Estate Sale place in their town to take care of the things in the apartment. My bro and I were there to gather our treasures, keepsakes, photo albums.

I will say this, after listening to Mom go on about "this is worth this and that is worth that" you do learn that in a place that is FULL of last estate sales, it is all worth much less than expected. There are no longer people who "collect". And everyone is looking for cheap towels. I would say that it was all handled and taken care of very well, but there was less profit for Mom certain SHE had hoped. ("Oh, that Lawyer's bookcase was worth MUCH more than THAT".)

I would make it as easy on yourself as you are able, I would have as few expectations as you are able, and then I would call around and speak directly to people, choosing the one who would handle it best for your circumstances. I sure wish you the best of luck.

I'm going through this right now with my MIL. She wanted to have an antiques appraiser come to the house to check out her antiques. Unfortunately, what she has saved for so many years is not at all valuable. I didn't want to tell her that her little cache of silver-plated, dented pitchers and chipped lampshades was essentially junk, so I told her I have an acquaintance who does antiques (I do), and I would ask him to appraise and sell them. Whether or not he agrees to sell them in his store, I'm going to just write her a check for a couple hundred bucks, because it's too hurtful for her to learn their actual value.

Having an estate sale was a good solution for us after my dad’s death. The house sold quickly and had a fast closing date. My brother lives 6 hours away, and it was just my husband and me here to deal. Also adding time pressure was the fact that my husband had a work project coming up that was 16 hour days for weeks on end.

We found an estate guy who sold all contents and hauled the rest off. I believe he took 35% of the sales. Ask around, different companies will have different policies.

Make things as easy as you can on yourself.
If having an estate sale is the easiest way to go that is what you should do. Does it really matter if the % that is charged is high. When the job is done it is done. And you do not have to deal with it yourself.
I have held a garage sale 2 times and that was more work than I imagined, after the first I said I would never do it again. (the second sale was not my stuff...a friend used my garage and driveway but it was still a pain to move stuff in and out and I lost my garage for a week or so)

It is our thought that, in our case, it almost doesn’t matter what the sale brings in. We fully expect mom to exhaust her savings in a few years at her AL, and that she will have to spend down to a Medicaid bed. So any proceeds that come from the sale would just add a month or two to her self-pay. Very sobering to look at $15,000 as three months’s living expenses.

However—I also see this as about the only place someone could rescue some of mom’s savings from the Medicaid pot. Anything sold outside of a sale would not have to be a part of the estate. Unfortunately we don’t have any real valuables from mom, save a few hundred dollars’ worth—and those things will likely be kept as heirlooms anyway and given to grandchildren, mementoes of their grandparents (crystal candlesticks, for example, and not much of that kind of thing.) Also, for us, the “memory items” the kids want are simple, meaningful thigs, and not the expensive stuff. Like a cookie jar my mom had in her kitchen.

And like other posters have said, the things that we thought might have some value just don’t anymore. Young people aren’t into Queen Anne or antiques.

We are doing a sale, however it comes out, just to be DONE. We will keep a few things to hand down, and let the rest go to people who want it. The last years have been nothing but trauma, and I don’t see an end to that yet. We would like the house thing settled, so we can move on.

When my mom passed away my dad asked us to start clearing out any rooms he did not use. The first thing I did was set up a hidden facebook page called Grandma’s Attic”. Next I uploaded a photos of all my moms figurines Wine glasses, crystal, silver and anything I thought had value. Wall hangings etc. My brothers wife prior to this had all ready taken what we wanted. I invited my sons & their wives along with my nieces and asked them to take a look and let me know what they wanted. If two liked the same item they could work it out among themselves. If they wanted something they posted in the comments. I gave them two weeks. I then boxed and labeled what they wanted. Next I removed them and their items from the site and added two girls from next door that had recently married and repeated the process. One had a curio cabinet and she took all of mom English figurines that were left.
After dad died we pretty much asked family what they wanted. My parents had high end furniture. Hardwood frames no plywood or board. Two sons took things like the hardwood Kitchen and dinning table each had 3-4 inserts to make larger. They also took the grandfather clock, Leather couch, End and coffee tables, and a few other pieces. My parents living room was only used for holidays. Then I asked a young couple we knew that bought the house up the street if they could use any of the other furniture and bedroom sets, lamps, wall hangs etc. they took a lot. Then my neighbors and newly married daughters and engaged son came and took most of the rest. Then a friend who's son’s house burned to the ground took everything else. Yes we could of sold everything but at this point I knew everyone that ended up with items and we had little to donate left. Then I paid someone to take the stuff left in an unfinished basement out. They swept up afterwards. I found the couples in their mid 20’s - 30’s loved the antiques & early American style even the wall paper in dads home, But the 40’s generation was only into modern. My sons and wife's 30-40’s loved the early American stuff. In the end everything was out in a week.
Do whats easiest for you.