The #1 Most FAQ We Receive About Estate Sales

estate sale

Sep 5

We’ve been asked this question over and over by 99% of all potential clients since the day we opened our doors to host estate sales. We’ve been asked on the phone, over email, and in person. If I could boil down our FAQ to just one burning question that all families want to know before contracting an estate liquidator, it would be this one.

“Do I have enough stuff to make my money back?”

That is a very valid question as most families goal is to make money on the sale of their belongings. Liquidating the contents of a home is a very unique service. It is still a service all the same as having your home painted, or hiring a moving company, but it is unique in that the service sells items that offset the cost of that service.

In other words, estate sales are one of the only instances where you can hire a company that will then sell things that help you recoup some (maybe all) of the money required for the service.

I find that to be both really unique and really special!

Over the years we have fine tuned what it takes to host a successful estate sale.

The time of year
The location of the home
The quantity and quality of the items available for sale
Time available to setup and market

While all four criteria lead to the path of success, the third point (the quantity and quality of items available for sale) really matter.

A client doesn’t need an overabundance of items and they all don’t have to be the best of the best in terms of quality. We do recommend that a client have a nice mix: some quality items, some furniture, some collectible items, and plenty of everyday pieces such as clothes, dishware, tools, and the like.

A follow up question that we often receive is “can you tell me how much you think I could make?”

We’ve tried to guess on a clients “estate” worth before and truth be told, it is almost impossible to know. Without getting into the inventory ourselves and researching and pricing, we just don’t know. Some items could surprise you by way of value and some items could be worth a lot less once you inspect their condition. It just depends, which is not the answer anyone wants. ;)

Take real estate for example. You contact a realtor about putting your home on the market, they set up a consultation with you while pulling comparable properties in the interim. At the consultation, you review previous sales to determine an appropriate selling price for your home. One piece of inventory to price and that is all.

For an estate liquidator, we are pricing hundreds, if not thousands of items within a home to sell. Some items will be worth a dollar and some will be worth more. It all adds up and we recommend having a mix of it all! :)

Let’s talk some statistics and numbers for a moment.

Estate Sale Stats

We offer two packages that include “pre-selling” items online. On average, 20% of total sales come from our pre-sale efforts.

In terms of furniture, the average percentage of total sales that come from furniture is 54%. Therefore, over half of the estate sale profit is generated from large ticket items such as furniture.

In most scenarios, I recommend clients choose our Gold Package which includes a minimum of 10 online pre-sales. This gives us a chance to market their items farther and wider than if we just hosted a local two-day sale.

I’ll end our post today with an encouraging word.

Recently we had an estate sale client call to tell us they wanted to cancel their estate sale sharing they felt they had kept too much and didn’t have enough for our service. Raymond met with them again to review what was left and encouraged them that while it didn’t look like much, it would most certainly bring about a wonderful mix for customers near and far. They took his recommendation and proceeded. The sale was a great success from start to finish!

Review their project here >> Gastonia Estate Sale

If you aren’t sure, then I recommend starting with a consultation. We will give you our honest opinion. :)