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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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salvation army and habitat renew stores will pick up bigger items like beds, dressers, chairs,
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Why can’t you liquidate things after moving? We did this with moms house. Fully furnished her new space with the old things she wanted to being. Got her moved. Then liquidated what was left. She was happily ensconced in the new place and no trama for her to see her stuff being sold.
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There are some cash flow issues so we need to liquidate simultaneously as we transition.
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mj, as yes, 40 years of stuff. I remember trying to get my parents to start parting with "stuff" but Mom would only give me one item to donate to a hospital rummage sale... [sigh]. After she passed, I had to fill boxes upon boxes for the rummage sale, plus cataloging everything.

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.
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Even antiquey things and really nice furnishings don't seem to bring in very much these days. The combination of Internet (increased supply) and Gen X wanting modern (and uncluttered) home interiors mean decreased demand. My MIL had a statue that family figured was worth $150 in the 90's. Today, it's going for $26 on Ebay. I'd wondered what I was going to do with only one silver coffee/tea service and two daughters. Today, neither daughter wants it, as they have no where to store it.
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I'm going through the same thing: I need to stay in the house during and after the estate sale. Obviously the estate sale companies prefer not to have family members around but I explained the problems to them, and the one I chose has agreed to work around me. We'll concentrate all the things not to be sold in a couple of rooms --- including the one I'll be sleeping in --- and they'll be closed off. During the sale itself, I'll stay with family or in a motel to be out of their way. If the company is interested in the sale, they'll probably be flexible.
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Linda22, you are so right about the much younger generation not really interested in antiquey things. Myself, I like the "early attic" look. I have a lot of antique furniture and all the along I was thinking ahead that this was a good investment, that value would keep going up, etc. NOT !!

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.
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You might want to look into local auction houses. I called one up when i closed a small store i had and they came assessed and gave me a price. Which included them halling it all out .
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Between dealing with my parent's stuff and some of our stuff that I'm gradually clearing out, I post items on the Freecycle (on-line) website. Freecycle is popular in various parts of the country. Offer the item/s on the website within your community. Describe the item and it's condition. If someone wants it for free, communicate online and arrange for pick up from your property. If it's a large or heavy item I spell it out. I state if it requires a truck or trailer plus two or so strong men to move it off the property.
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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my mom inherited her SIL home. but guess who got to take care of everything? took me 9 months to get the house empty/sold. towards the end I hired a mom/daughter team that do estate sales. I had no choice, there was too much remaining & my goal was to get the house sold. since it was my moms property she was paying water, electricity, lawn service and vacant house fire ins.(didn't cover contents) So I worked as fast as I could. there was ~so~ much stuff. stuff from 1945 etc like paperwork! a lot of stuff was so old(ton of old paper plates etc) BUT there were lots of valuable things also. there was no way I could handle a estate sale of that size. it was very hard having to hand over the keys. because they don't allow you to be involved. but it turned out to be a success in my eyes.

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.
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