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The do it either way but a percentage is normally the method. If in their opinion things in the estate aren't going to fetch much at a sale, there may be an upfront cash requirement plus a percentage. There are people that just come in and "clean up" estates for the belongings which they then turn around and sell themselves and they may pay a nominal sum to do so and there are people that clean out for a lump sum. Some just sell house, kit and caboodle as is but that is really rare, the home in shambles sold as a tear down.
How you go about it depends on the quality of the "stuff" in the home. Fortunately we have prevailed on my mother to start the process and I am almost finished with the process in my 50s. I just went through my bookshelves and got rid of 5 boxes. I tend to gather books....
OK, thanks for the information. She does have a lot of things that are worth selling. And the house is only 7 years old, so not some run-down dump. She has "decision making" problems, and therefore won't get rid of things. I've just come to the conclusion that the whole mess will be dumped on me to deal with someday.
Her parents, OTOH, took the initiative to have 3 garage sales in their 80s to get rid of most of their things and move themselves into an assisted living apartment.
Don't waste too much energy resenting the fact that she didn't get rid of the stuff for you (?); it's not easy to part with sentimental items, and especially not as we get older and sicker... The natural default for most people is to store it somewhere and then forget about it; it's not a problem unless we're literally tripping over it until we go to move it. Keep in mind that if you didn't buy the stuff (including the house), anything you get from it -- however little -- is a bonus; that helped keep it in perspective for me.
Eventually, my mother will die or go to a nursing home, and it'll be dumped on me to get rid of all the crap. She's a mid-grade hoarder, and every closet, drawer and surface is packed with crap. I don't live in her city, so I can't do it myself over time.
In that case I'd just get a junk person to cart it off. Where I live, they'll pay you for this. They'll come by and make you an offer. Normally you should have pulled as much as possible so it's readily visible, or at least empty out the drawers and have all the cabinet drawers open. They don't like having to waste time rummaging through drawers and closets. You can just dump it on tables and countertops and on sheets on the floor. If you accept their offer, they'll provide the boxes.
There are people like this in every community but you might have to ask around to find them.
I'm dealing with this issue now. My father and his wife were "hoarders" of sorts, but they didn't hoard junk, they hoarded art and antiques. When they were alive, some antique dealer came over and estimated that there was between 7,000 and 10,000 items in the house. It's totally nuts. Anyway, they're both dead and I'm supposed to be doing something about all the stuff in the house. And from what I can tell, there's no magical way to turn "stuff" into money and hope to retain whatever value was there.
-I can call up an auction house and have them come and pack everything up and take it away to be sold. They charge $300 an hour to do that, although some places might do it for free.
-I could arrange for a tag sale to be held at the house.
-I could keep the stuff and spend the rest of my life selling it on EBay (I don't want to do that).
I guess that, in the end we'll try to keep some of the smaller, more valuable items and just get rid of the rest without worrying about the money we'd be "losing." Life is too short to worry about a bunch of nonsense.
In defense of the old people, antiques USED to be valuable, so I know that my mother (at least) kept them in order to have something worthwhile to pass along to her children. She had no way of knowing they would become so devalued in this age of "disposable" things.
Last edited by otterhere; 01-12-2016 at 12:08 PM..
I checked into them. They don't pay much and by the time you pay to ship the heavy china to them, you are lucky to break even. They are located just outside of Greensboro NC.
...I have a lot of highly collectible antique dolls- at least they were collectible 20-30 years ago. I'm thinking it would be best to deal with somebody who deals only in dolls. Any suggestions?
I sold my childhood dolls on Ebay. Got good prices for them. You might look for websites that specialize in dolls as well. Robyn
For a huge fee! They wanted $500 for their smallest truck! Unlike auctions, etc, you don't even get a percentage of the value! We called Salvation Army--they haul off large items for free.
...How you go about it depends on the quality of the "stuff" in the home...
Very true. I have done everything from throwing stuff away to donating to Goodwill to giving things to household employees to selling on Ebay to - in one case - selling a piece of antique silver at auction at Christie's (fetched about $15000). The last was in my late in-laws' house - where just about everything else was junk.
It is impossible to generalize and say that "antiques" or "china" or any other class of goods isn't worth anything. You have to know what you're dealing with. Robyn
We put things out on the front porch when Craigs list people come. So far it hasn't been a problem, and we've sold a lot of things through Ebay and Craigs list. We've been donating a lot of stuff and I finally got John to dispose of some of those hundreds of dust collecting flying magazines that he never looks at anymore. Jumping for joy on that one
My son got rid of his model railroading magazines (his own and those he inherited from his grandfather) after he bought a CD containing decades worth of these magazines. Now he can just look up the info on his computer.
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