Book Board Chat

Beth pretty much hit the nail on the head, re end of estate sale.

We used to try and get the remains donated to non-profits so we could present the family with a donation form for tax purposes. That ended up being a nightmare because the non-profits out here have become very picky. They will cherry pick the best items and leave you with a house full of "remains". Then the estate would have to pay to have that removed. The process was very time consuming and the receipt didn't usually make up for the cash loss in the clients' minds.

We offer the option of taking a lower commission on the sale and walk away at the end leaving the family to deal with the remainder, but most families decide against that. The whole reason they hire us is so they won't have to deal with it.

Some estate sale companies in our area have in the contract that the remaining items become their property at the end of the sale and they will remove it. Pam and I feel that's a conflict of interest, as the estate company can then price the nicer items so high they don't sell. Then those items become property of the estate sale people who can sell later at a lower price and keep 100% of the profit, rather than just a commission on the sale. If we want something at the estate sale we pay the same price as all the other customers do. Our only bonus is we get first choice, and we get to shop first on the discount days (the night before).

In SoCal it is getting more and more difficult to find 'buy out' people. Most of them now charge to haul away anything left in the house. We found some wonderful people who pay a lump sum based on what is there and they haul it all away, the good with the bad. If there is a lot of bad they may pay nothing, or even charge. It depends on how much money they feel they can make at flea markets, weighed against their costs of removal and storage. They are very fair, and we try to make sure there is not much "junk" or trash by the time they get there. We do free Craigslist ads for difficult to sell items, and we do many trips to the dumpster during sale prep if there is a lot of trash in the house.