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Mom is downsizing and selling her house and has some nice antiques, furniture, and art. I was wondering if any of you have any advice on how best to proceed: do we contract out for an estate sale manager? If so, what kind? Do we contact an auction house to handle the art (some by known artists)?
Much appreciated!
Steve
How quickly do you need to liquidate?
To maximise your sales, you need to sell over a fairly long period of time... 1 year would be my estimation.
Otherwise, you run the chance of selling in a market that is saturated - your pieces may not sell, or sell for very little. By selling in small groups over time, you improve your chances for success (but not everything will go your way regardless).
I would put all major works of art and period furniture into an auction with a reputation for high quality - expect 60-70% of the market value.
General decor/furniture could be sold at smaller auctions that sell everyday household items, or sold at consignment shops - expect 40-50% of market value.
Yard sale / Estate sale items sell for about 10-40% of the market value (if you want things to sell).
When you get close to the time you must have things moved out, call Goodwill and have them pick up the remainder of what is re-sellable.
The rest goes to the landfill or put it up for FREE on Facebook.
Best of luck!
Oh, and another alternative is to sell the entire contents at one time to an estate buyer (that's what I do...but it has been several years since I've done it).
Expect to get about 10-20% of the value of your items, but they'll take the bad with the good.
A house can be cleaned out in a just a few days, you don't have to wait to get paid, you don't have to move/store furniture, you can move ahead with listing your real estate right away, and you don't stress over the possibility that things get broken or don't sell.
However, you have to sell the good items with all the rest. If you pull the good stuff, you'll never get someone to buy what's left over (people actually pay for clean out services).
Story time - About 15 years ago, I got a house call from a woman who use to be Donald Trump's neighbor, but had since downsized and was living in a golf community in West Palm Beach. She wanted to move to Mexico and asked if I would buy her estate.
I spent the day at her home assessing the value, bought a few things (spent about $10k), and offered to buy the rest of the contents for $20k and promised a bonus if two of the works of art achieved better than expected results (she did not have provenance, so that was a big question as to their authenticity). She agreed and I scheduled to come back at the end of the week with cash, trucks, and a crew to clear the place out.
At the end of the week when I came back, she told me that she had changed her mind (she didn't have the decency to call me) and was going to put everything through a local auction since they told her she would do a lot better.
I was upset that she didn't call me to cancel because the cost of the truck rentals and workers cost me $2,000, but I wished her well and left.
Two months later, she called me and asked if I would do the deal. I politely refused.
It turns out that most of the items did not sell at auction. The auction house was going to charge her for the pick up and return of the items of the unsold lots, and storage if she delayed. The major works of art did not sell due to having no provenance, and the reputations of these works were permanantly damaged as a result. What sold, sold at the low end of the estimates.
She called me two other time, until I finally had to set her straight and told her not to call me again.
Later that year, I saw many of her things at the local thrift stores.
Lesson - Think about what your goal is... is it to make every last penny off the sale of these items, or is it to help your mom to make a smooth transition into downsizing?
If it is to make every last penny... you'll need to open your own auction house or store, and there is no guarantee of success. Nobody will do this kind of work without reasonable compensation for their time.
But, I think you are trying to help your mom, so I wish you all the luck.
Take care!
Oh, that's annoying. She learned her lessons the hard way, especially the one about treating contractors with respect and courtesy.
Since there are no Rembrandts - just some midcentury NW artists - the expeditious route is probably the way to go. I live in a different state and don't have room and neither does family closer to her. I'd just hate to see stuff going to the junkyard; even if we get a fraction of the value, if the good items go to people who appreciate them, that would make me happy. We may even contact our local art museum to see if they'd be interested in a donation or two (unlikely, I know).
Thank you very much for your sage advice! I appreciate it!
@steve You're welcome. And, Steve, I very much understand the sentimental attachment to things... not wanting things to go into the trash that were important to your mom (and you/family) is really understandable.
You need to go through everything and pull out the items that have meaning to you, take them home, even store them until you've had time to process what their value is to you on a personal level. Then, make a decision.
Everything else... the quicker it's gone, the better.
Best of luck.
Yes, I'll do that. Thank you! We already went through and catalogued everything a few years ago at the direction of Mom, splitting everything up between my sister and I with us participating. There are a couple of paintings that I am getting that Mom may use to decorate her new apartment or I can have them now. The big Oriental living room rug she's taking (good!) the grandfather clock, probably not (I don't want to part with it but I have no room and brining it down will be a logistical headache).
I'm so lucky I have a wonderful sister who is honest, especially since I can't be there myself.
Great advice from @greeno107. The Palm Beach example is not uncommon 😣 😣.
Estate sales are liquidations. With a good company, it is an orderly liquidation that accomplishes the goals of raising money and clearing the house. With a not so good company, it can be a disorderly liquidation that is chaotic, high value items are missed and low value items are overpriced only to remain after the sale. @greeno107 is correct, to get 'all the money' takes time. We see examples of people that labor over an estate for years, while not considering the holding costs of the real estate, especially as interest rates change and the market shifts. Even with a home of wonderful items, the value of the contents is often a small fraction of the value of the home and sound financial decisions are in the service of preparing the home for sale in an efficient and expedient manner.
In my experience, I believe a good estate sale company will not have a problem with a client pulling a few high value items and placing in an auction. If they are clear eyed and honest with themselves, they know that the cream of the crop deserves to be elevated to a venue that can present the best items to a worldwide audience and handle the shipping.
Best of luck to you! Sounds like you are on the RIGHT path.
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