First some background: When someone passes away and leaves a lifetime's worth of possessions in their home, you have a couple of options:
1. You can try to sell the items yourself. If you're a working person, this is really hard to do. An 1800 square foot home holds a LOT of stuff.
2. You can hire an estate liquidation company. The estate liquidation company usually gives you two options: they will hold an estate sale and split the profits with you anywhere from 30/70 (with them getting 30% after expenses) to 50/50. Or, they can do a "buyout". That's where they just buy the contents of the entire house for a set amount of money. It's a rude awakening when you find out that your loved one's possessions are worth much less than you thought but remember that we're not talking about sentimental value here - we're talking about garage sale value.
There is the potential to make a little bit more $$ with the estate sale but it takes longer AND there is always the chance that some of the items won't sell and you end up with less than the buyout amount. After going back and forth on which way I wanted to go, I opted for the buyout. At first, $1500 seemed really low for everything in my mom's house but then I realized that the company still needs to make a profit AND they were saving me time and money by clearing out the house so that we could get it on the market sooner.
Many of the estate liquidators we contacted (or tried to contact) seemed flaky (i.e. not returning calls, etc.) Scott Mansell, owner of Sac Valley Auctions, was professional, kind, flexible to our needs, and explained the process in detail. We gave him a key to the house and he gave us the date the job would be completed. Scott said that the house would be left "broom clean".
I have to say that I though "broom clean" just meant that the trash would be picked up and the floors would be swept. Sac Valley Auctions finished the job on schedule and when we stopped by to see how much cleaning we would need to do we were blown away. The floors were spotless, the carpets were vacuumed and everything SPARKLED! We didn't have to do a thing. I would highly recommend Scott and Sac Valley Auctions based on my experience. Thank you Scott and SVA for all of your help! read more