A New Twist on Estate Sales – Video

March 1, 2018 / Lisa Dunn / Comments Off

When you’re thinking about moving out of a home you’ve lived in for 40 or 50 years it can sure be overwhelming! In particular when you look around at the 40 or 50 years of stuff that would need to be dealt with. As a real estate agent who specializes in working with seniors, one of the hot topics of conversation is indeed about the stuff! Often times my clients think having an estate sale seems like the perfect solution.

Unfortunately, it’s often not the perfect solution for many of my clients. Estate sale companies often charge set-up fees in addition to a percentage of commission on each item sold. They also will often have a minimum amount they want to make on the sale, often $3,000 and up. To be fair, if you’ve ever seen the work involved with the set up for an estate sale, you’d probably agree with me, they earn every cent they make! I certainly don’t fault them for these charges, I just want to point out that estate sales are a viable option for a smaller percentage of you than you may think.

If you live in a community with a homeowner’s association such as a condominium or townhome, you may find your rules and regulations prohibit either garage sales or estates sales.

Is there an alternative to just donating everything? There is! Estate Smart is a company in the Twin Cities metro that specializes in small to medium estates. They’ll hold an online auction for your larger items, and conduct an estate sale to help you sell some of the smaller items, and there’s no set-up fee and no minimum. See the video below for an introduction to Estate Smart, and for information about their process.