I have been the executer on four estates. The third one the family wanted an estate sale. It turned out to be a joke. They only got maybe 50% of what the stuff was worth. How do I know this?? The estate was purchased by a local company. They held an auction a few months after they bought the estate. I went and wrote down the prices that most of the large stuff brought. The estate company made very good money. This is really true on antique stuff.
I will never do another estate sale unless it is in a major urban area and there is just house hold stuff. Furniture and such does not bring much any way unless it is antique.
Just have an auction with a good local auctioneer. It will surprise you what things will bring. The last estate auction had a large stack of old new papers going clear back into the 1920s. We sorted them in to decades, 20s,30s etc. That stack of news papers brought almost a $1000. The family wanted to throw them away.
Have a auction and then have a dumpster there during the sale. Anything left just pitch in the dumpster. By a few hours after the sale it is all over with and your done. If you live a long ways away and will need to sell the house just hire a local cleaning service to finish the house up after the sale. It will be the best $500-750 that you will ever spend. You can have the house sale at the auction. Then you can really just walk away. Cheaper homes will bring just about as much at auction as they will trying to sell them on any other way.
Some things to remember when having an auction:
1) Do not have a bidders premium. Some fly by night auctioneers push these to old people by saying that the auctions will not cost them anything. WRONG??? A lot of bidders will not even go. The seller is going to pay for the sale one way or another. Just have a conventional sale and all the costs are handle after the auction out of the auction proceeds.
2) Spend some money on advertising. Auction ads are not cheap but if you catch just one extra good bidder they can pay for all of the advertising cost for the whole auction. So advertise in a few local papers and a few regional ones. Your auctioneer should have an Internet site too.
The first estate I handled had a collection of 1970s match box cars. Nothing really rare. Just a lot of them in the origianl boxes, never opened, price tags on most of them. I had it appraised and they said it might bring a few hundred dollars. Two guys came up from St. Louis. They where friends but still wanted some of the models real bad. That collection brought over $4500. Most of that due to those two guys. They put a real high floor under what the collection was bring. If they had not been there the auction would have made a whole lot less money.
So usually good advertising pays dividends. For an average estate sale the advertising can easily be $2500-4000 dollars depending what you have when you set down and list it. A short list to keep the ad's cost down will shot yourself in the foot every time. If that is what you do them just do not bother with advertising much. IF you want to hold the cost way down then a large list in the local papers is better than a short list on a bunch of papers. Remember this is not you selling a set of used tires on Craigslist. There is going to be cost involved.
3) As far as parking. Do not worry about it. People will find places to park.
4) Have the sale on a Saturday or Sunday. Never have an estate sale during the week with just normal house hold stuff. People will not take off work just to go the a mid week sale they will go to one on the weekend. Yes I did say a Sunday sale. They are getting to be more of them around here for just household stuff. There usually is a good turn out.
Well I have given you some stuff to think about. It is worth what you paid for it. LOL. You need to keep peace in the family too. So if this becomes a battle with the one sister just let it go. The estate you are talking about is not going to be a high dollar auction/sale either way you sell it. I just think auctions are the best way to go. The market sets the price. These days that can be the world market too even on an estate sale.
Good luck and I am sorry your Father/Mother are gone. It makes one feel their age when you become the last of a line.
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