3 Reasons To Hire An Estate Liquidator

estate sale

Apr 4

As I scrolled the posts on my Facebook feed, I paused at one. It was a marketing post for an “estate sale”. It was coming up that weekend and not too far from my house. I worked it into that day’s plan and stopped by after a trip to the grocery store.

I loved their balloons and the eagerness on their face to greet shoppers and sell sell sell. I spotted a few pieces of furniture and a few other trinkets. It was somewhat organized but still a treasure hunt nonetheless. Not many things had prices so I went in search of someone who was working. “Hi, how much are the chairs and the headboard?”, I asked.

“$450 for the chairs and $100 for the headboard” she shared. I wanted to make sure I heard her correctly, so I repeated back the price on the chairs. “$450 for both chairs?”

She confirmed and I proceeded to browse the garage and tables in the driveway. Raymond joined me and found a pair of shoes that caught his eye. He looked at me and asked what the prices were. I shrugged; not my estate sale. Being one who doesn’t like to inquire, he put them down and we proceeded to the car. The homeowner offered a different price for the chairs before we made it out of the driveway.

“$200 for both chairs honey.”

When a family is on their downsizing journey or closing the estate of a loved one, there is always the question of “what am I going to do with all of this stuff?”

There are a few options.

Throw it all away
Donate it all
Sell it

Within the selling bucket, you have even more options:

Do it yourself
Hire someone to do it for you.

I love the old adage of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” and it rightly applies to these circumstances. Selling some furniture online or hosting a yard sale is one thing, but an estate sale is another game altogether. It’s the cousin to the yard sale. Related but not the same.

Reason #1 to hire an estate liquidator: Pricing

When you go to sell a home, what is the first thing you think about? Price.

How do you determine the price of your home? You look at other homes in your area for a reference and you call a realtor, the expert.

Selling the contents of a home requires the same process. A seasoned liquidator will know far more about the market value than an hour of online research will ever provide. Pricing is extremely important when it comes to selling anything. A house. A car. A guitar. A vase.

There is a sweet spot for each and every item and a liquidator is hired to identify that range. If you miss the range and price too high, then you just turn away potential customers. Like those chairs from my story. $450 was outside of the sweet spot. Buyers become aware of the inexperience of do-it-yourselfs when they reduce the price so quickly. This opens the door for further negotiation.

One last point on pricing. When you walk into Target or Home Goods, you expect everything to be tagged and priced. This informs your purchase decisions as you browse the store. An estate sale is no different. No one wants to ask how much something cost.

Everything that is for sale should be tagged and priced. This may not be an industry standard, but know it is a requirement for Pure & Simple sales.

Related: before the madness of moving

Reason #2 to hire an estate liquidator: Payment

Returning to my story, the payment options available as a customer was singular: cash.

Raise your hand if you still carry cash?

How about $550 worth of cash? Which is how much the homeowner was asking for her chairs and headboard. The likelihood of finding a customer with that much cash on them on that exact day in that part of town. Well that is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

When you hire a liquidator, the payment options become much broader.

Credit cards for online purchases
Credit & debit cards for in-person purchases
Cash
Venmo
PayPal

Your chances of selling increase when you offer multiple payment options. The hardest part of any sale is getting customers there (I’ll talk about that one next), but keeping them there and encouraging them to shop and buy is the second hardest part.

related: how to get ready to downsize

Reason #3 to hire an estate liquidator: Marketing

You could have the best house, car, furniture, collection, and so one, but if no one knows about it, then you might as well not have it all.

It’s like the question of “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a noise?”

If you have the best stuff to sell but no one is around, then is it actually for sale?

Marketing is key. You must shout it from the rooftops that you have stuff for sale. But in order to attract eyes, there are a few requirements:

Clear photos
Graphics that attract customers
Clear policies shared upfront (buyers want to know what they are walking into)
Listings in multiple places

Marry these two things together:

We buy with our eyes
We live in an online world

Meeting buyers where they are is important, but in a noisy world you must stand out. Quality photos and beautiful graphics will elevate you above yard sales and other estate sales.

A good liquidator will provide other resources for marketing as well. Good photos and beautiful graphics are important. But personal invitations, relationships with resellers, and a database of specific interests for private customers will increase sales and this is something that doing-it-yourself simply won’t allow.

When an estate liquidator has a wonderful reputation, then you can trust them to take care of the question of “what am I going to do with all this stuff?” Sit back and let them handle the details.