After the death of my mother, my father wants to move to a much smaller space, which I support fully. They lived in the same house for almost forty years and, as a result, have forty years of things. We need to liquidate quite a bit of this before moving, and most estate sale places I've talk to require him moving first. I live out of state and can't personally manage "e-baying" each item and he's too distraught to handle this, so I'm trying to find vendors who might handle this. Any suggestions?
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if youre not comfortable or cant do that.
I know we have antique malls in my town. maybe if possible to contact some vendors who may want to purchase everything for one price. you aren't going to make as much as you would if you sold things yourself, so that's the down side. the estate people get a big cut. but I was ok with that. or maybe there are some those places who do consignment. instead of consignment they may "purchase all" and re-sell. you never know until you ask. but like I said, you will take a loss. since they have to re-sell to make a profit.
As with anything, since you are stranger's to each other, it's best to be outside and have a friend or family with you. So if you can get it as far as your garage or doorstep no one needs to go inside. I've met some really neat people this way. Smaller items of furniture, dishes, linens, inexpensive tools, leftover office and art supplies, ornaments, small kitchen items etc. are almost always wanted by someone. Some local sellers are willing to pick up some items for free as they know how to actually market the stuff. When I can finally come off the not-so-merry-go-round with my mom's estate and my spouse's medical/Medicaid nightmare, I will offer my (18) 3-ring binders currently filled with everything medical and Medicaid. and the rest of their lives. The stuff I absolutely have to keep 5 years will get wrapped in plastic and placed into sturdy cardboard boxes. I've received the boxes and packing bubbles through Freecycle. Freecycle's goal is to keep useable items out of landfills, streams etc. and to give it away, not sale it. Some items save people a lot of time, aggravation, and/or money. I look forward to Freecycling all those pink and blue binders someday!
In the end if there is stuff you simply can not get rid of, pay someone to haul it away. The more you give away, the less to haul - and you will probably save more than you could have made by yard sales.
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Oh, I had gotten one of those silver coffee/tea service sets. Every hostess in my era needed one in case hubby brought home the boss for dinner :P Not once did I ever use it. And after cleaning the silver a couple times of year, I just put it into hiding. Well, 40 years later I finally donated it to the hospital rummage sale. I went the last day of the rummage sale, and sure enough the silver set was still there, along with a ton of Forstoria glassware that I had donated from my late Mom's collection and my collection.
You are lucky to find an estate sale person. I had called quite a few back when my Dad said it time to empty out of the house. Since Dad didn't have any priceless antiques or over-the-top expensive paintings, the service wasn't interested.
Yard sale was out of the question as Dad was moving to senior living in the middle of winter, plus no way I could haul out furniture onto the driveway even if it was warm weather.
I called Salvation Army to take the furniture but they refused to take any of the second floor items because the house had a U shape stairway, insurance reasons. I called Goodwill, but they were booked out 2 months. Eventually I had to call one of those 1-800 haul junk places to finally empty out the house. I was able to swap out items from my own house so I could keep some of my parents items for myself.
My boss used an auction house as he had quality furnishings, etc. But the money he got from the sale of those items was so little. He would have done better donating all those items and writing it off on income taxes for donations.