Having an Estate Sale before moving???

[Orchidflower]

Very helpful, Meadbh, thanks!

By the way, did I mention somewhere that a friend of mine sent a vintage set of his now deceased wife's good set of dishware all the way from Illinois to Texas by UPS. They packed it and shipped it for a total of $150. Not one thing broke. All were impressed. Who would have thought of using UPS for that, but he did and was happy needless to say with their service.

 

[bruce1]

Thanks for the shipping suggestions. I can get the crosscut shredded paper at my former workplace for filling in the small nooks and crannies between items wrapped in newsprint. I have shipped cameras wrapped in two layers of bubble wrap but was not sure about china and glass.

 

[kcowan]

I have liquidated 2 estates. Used a contents/garage sale in the local papers and it ran Saturday and Sunday. Selectively sold several items via Craigslist and Kijiji. Used a service to take things to charity and another to take things to the dump.

A couple of suggestions:
1. If selling jewelry or electonics through the internet, meet potential buyers in a shopping plaza rather than in the home. This discourages thieves.
2. Have a free table out front to generate interest from passerbys. Keep it stocked.

Good luck!

 

[audreyh1]

1. If selling jewelry or electonics through the internet, meet potential buyers in a shopping plaza rather than in the home. This discourages thieves.

We sold all electronics and jewelry through eBay and shipped it to the customer. No worry about meeting anyone face-to-face.

And eBay is a much larger customer base, so you are much more likely to get a reasonable price for main brand electronics and jewelry.

Audrey

 

[Nords]

They do Thurs, Fri and Sat estate sales here. The "pro" I spoke to said that she has 6 people there the first day and then cuts it down to 3 the next 2 days. Must be alot less crowd on Fri and Sat I guess.

How hard do you want to work? Will the "25% savings" be worth the time, or will you be spending hours to "save" at a rate of less than minimum wage? How much security hassle do you want?

When my mother died, my father decided to move out of a 3000 sq ft home to a one-bedroom apartment. He hired a pro for the estate sale.

Before he spoke to the estate-sale companies he made sure that he'd gone through anything my mother could have stashed anything in. No problems there. Then he began to pack his stuff out while he was arranging the estate sale. By the time the sale was held, the only things inside the house were the things for sale. Everything was outta there in a couple days and he didn't have to sit around watching memories get pushed in his face.

He said it was well worth the commission.

Otherwise you end up doing a lot of Craigslist, one or two garage sales, and a huge 1-800-GOT-JUNK run. The savings for that extra effort may not pay for the hassle.

 

[DangerMouse]

I think if you have anything valuable, I would get someone who is an expert in the field to come thru first and sell via them if possible. I am talking if you have antique furniture or expensive jewellery.

Personally if it was me I would list all the big stuff $ wise on Craigslist, what ws unsold after a week I would leave along with everything else and get a charitable organisation to come and box up and take away.

Estate sale sounds too hard for me.

 

[TromboneAl]

1. If selling jewelry or electonics through the internet, meet potential buyers in a shopping plaza rather than in the home. This discourages thieves.

Do you mean that it discourages them from casing your house for a later return, or discourages them from robbing you because there are other people around?

 

[audreyh1]

I guess we didn't worry about this too much as we sold quite a bit via Craig's list and folks had to come by to get stuff. OF course that was before vetting them through email or phone. It's kind of tough to manage getting rid of stuff without strangers coming by.

Anything really valuable was sold via eBay where we could expect to get best $$ for it, and those items shipped to customer.

Audrey

 

[audreyh1]

I think if you have anything valuable, I would get someone who is an expert in the field to come thru first and sell via them if possible. I am talking if you have antique furniture or expensive jewellery.

eBay is pretty good for jewelry. You can find similar items and see what they are going for. We sold a Rolex bought in the 70s and got really good money for it.

Audrey

 

[DangerMouse]

I think one of the most difficult thing with letting these things go is the realisation how little a lot of it is worth. By letting pros handle your sale you are removing yourself from the situation. As someone else said, just because you paid $500 and it is in mint condition don't expect to get anywhere near the value.

The things we have been selling on Craigslist, they have been bargains for the buyers. We sold a camera bag for $50, flat screen computer monitor $50, washer and dryer $350. All these things were bargains however keeping them in our house hoping to make more gave us $0.

 

[kcowan]

Do you mean that it discourages them from casing your house for a later return, or discourages them from robbing you because there are other people around?

It virtually eliminates the former, and it limits the latter to the goods being sold, and possibly discourages thieves because of other people as witnesses. In our case, all such transactions have been uneventful.