My stepmom passed after a long illness. My sister will be in the house for the time being but would like to begin the clearing out process. This will be a mammoth job. What are the best options when the house is in a gated community? Obviously facebook, craigslist, and buy nothing pages are not viable. I can’t see an estate sale happening either.
How do people manage this process in a large gated community?
I would suggest speaking with someone on the HOA board. They will know how this is managed at this place.
Where my MIL lives, you can’t have tag sales, but you can get a dumpster! And you can have folks pick things up. But you need to be with them at all times.
We used an estate company to clean out the last two family houses. The company comes and cleans out the house - they have toss, donate and sell piles but the selling is done off site at their place of business.
We did the same with my mom’s house and will do the same with my in laws.
Used an estate company, the sale was in her home. I know that for some sales, they will bring in items from another house
Neither live in a gated community though
Does anyone know if charity organizations such as the Veterans, etc… are typically allowed to pick up in gated communities?
We had to clear out my in law’s place in a gated community. There was a very nice consignment shop in the area, and we talked to them about it. They knew the subdivision well, and they told us that estate sales were forbidden - but if we sent pictures, they could pick up items that they could sell in their store. H & I packed up and donated a lot of things (books to the library, clothes & housewares to Goodwill). We threw out or shredded personal documents. Family members took what they wanted. For the final clean out, we had a local service come in that took everything that was left - they sold stuff in lots, so I guess they were like a liquidation company. They even emptied out the drawers! My in laws made some money from the clean out - not a lot, but it was not pocket change, either.
In our experience, yes, but it probably depends on the HOA rules.
They are allowed at MILs CCRC which is gated as well. But as I said…someone needs to be with them at all times, and no entry code can be given to them. You have to meet them yourself.
Definitely depends on the HOA and is the first place to contact. If they don’t allow estate sales and such, they may still be able to make suggestions based on previous resident history as this is a common situation.
We live in a high-end gated community that does not allow garage sales but does allow estate sales. Once a year, the community sponsors a garage-sale weekend in one of the large common spaces. The HOA provides tables/tents for a small rental fee, posts notices/signage around town, and opens the gates during sale hours that weekend.
We had a living estate auction when we downsized and moved to Florida. We weren’t in a gated community, but we were on a cul-de-sac. I did not want an auction or sale happening at our home. Wasn’t going to do that to our neighbors.
The auction house took a slightly higher % to come pack up everything we were selling and move it to their facility. Maybe 5% more?? The auction happened at their site about a month later.
The beauty of an auction is that everything goes. We had a detailed list of what everything was sold for.
We also used an auction approach when my parents died over 35 years ago. That was held at their home, but it was a more rural setting v being in a neighborhood.
I’m a big fan of auctions over sales
In my parent’s gated community, no garage/estate sales were allowed, but we used Facebook marketplace, buy nothing, and charity pickups, including habitat for humanity successfully. Lots of work.
This is the issue for me. Particularly in the case of a death. It is just so much easier emotionally and physically to let someone else come in and handle things. Go through and take what you want and then bring someone in to deal with the rest. No one in a grieving state should be putting themselves through the angst, time, and effort necessary to dispose of, “stuff.” Yes, maybe you’d yield more $$ if you did it yourself, but at what true cost?
We were lucky—my older brother had his construction crew come in and haul everything from my folks CCRC independent unit to their old house that the crew had renovated. He then told everyone to get what they wanted and the rest would tossed of donated.
Not a gated community but a townhouse community with an HOA, no yard sales - when my folks moved to a retirement community, I had a tough time figuring out how to get all the stuff out of there. Some things had some value, but getting rid of things piecemeal wasn’t going to work (retirement community allowed you to put down 10% of entrance fee, then sign a promissory note that you would pay the balance in next 12 months, after sale of home).
Finally, I contacted an auction house and sent photos of anything they might want - furniture, silver place settings, artwork, etc. They told me what they wanted, picked up the stuff and took back to their auction house. The fee for pick up was deducted from the sales (took place at various auctions, over months), so I didn’t have to pay up front.
There was still lots of stuff - some might be of use to someone, other stuff was just trash. I asked auction house guy if he knew of someone to haul everything away. Gave me a name, guy came out and said, “$1000 but I can sell some, so $600. Maybe you want to call around for more estimates?”
No, I will gladly pay $600 for you to get rid of this, ASAP. And one piece of artwork was by a well known (not to me or my folks, but certain collectors) artist, and sold for $19K. Costs covered.
For MIL, all items any family members actually want have been identified, and they will need to arrange to get these things (e.g. bring a van or truck or hire a mover), but really, no one wants anything…or they already have what they want.
All clothing that is clean and not damaged will be taken to a shelter already identified.
Next up will be a dumpster for anything that really isn’t in good shape, or is incomplete (think…mongrel dinner plates).
Everything else will be removed from the house, probably using an estate person. That is the easiest way.
In our case, no staging as this is a CCRC, and they will come in, remove any carpet, clean and paint, make sure appliances are working, and see if anyone in the community wants to relocate to this smaller house first. If not, they look at their waitlist.
The “outlaws” have clearly said…this will not be something they help with. There are a bunch of siblings who can do this.
There are restrictions about what can happen (no tag sales) but that’s fine. No one in the family would want to do one anyway.
Thanks all for the good ideas. We will contact the HOA as a first step. I’m thinking an estate auction company that works off site is a good idea. I myself used an online auction company last year when I moved and it was by far the best way we were able to get rid of stuff all at once. I didn’t live in a gated community though so organizing and arranging pick up wa handled by the auction company from my home.
I know how long it takes to prepare a home for sale and I wish there had been an attempt made 5 years ago to start clearing stuff out, but I live on the opposite coast and have no control. I expect that we will have 8 months or so to ready the house for sale. It’s going to be a lot of work.
For my mother in law used company that came in cleaned out house and offered a sum based on their costs minus price for items they felt they could resell. So, let’s say they charged $1000 ( it was more but just as an example) to clean out house but felt all items including mid century chairs would go for 5000, we got paid 4k. They made a list of things that contributed to the value. So if we wanted to keep the chairs what we got would go down. The entire process took less than 2 weeks. We had to do almost nothing. They turned over all photos/ albums and all important papers. We ended up clearing little but loved the process and would do again in a heartbeat. No one but one sister in law was surprised that there was little vale there.
This. If you don’t actually need the money, the first thing to do is decide what anyone wants to keep. Then get those items to those people. That’s the hard part.
Then, contact the HOA and an estate auction firm. Have them walk thru and give you feedback about how this will work. We are currently clearing my parents’ home and the auctioneer takes 30% and an extra 10% if they have to clean up what’s leftover. He recommended removing everything that has no interest/value if we want to save money. (We don’t, we want to save our tired brains and grieving selves) That’s a big chunk of the sale, but we don’t care because we have already spent about 9 months determining who wants what (my Mom has 8 grandchildren ages 38 to 8, and 7 greats ages birth-10) and taking it to those people, or shipping it. Anyway, we think of it as hiring someone to clean out what is left, how it happens is not relevant at this point. Donating is tedious, taxing, and not nearly as useful as people say it will be. Takes forever. Charities don’t want our stuff, either.
Hire people. Whoever you have lost never intended to be a burden, or add this to your grief. Hugs to you and yours, it’s hard.
No advice, just my sincerest condolences.
After the children/grandchildren had decided what they wanted (not much as it turned out; parents had given away a LOT while they were healthy) one of my siblings had the fantastic idea to sent out an email and make a few calls saying “We are cleaning out the house to prepare it for a sale. Please stop by between 1- 5 pm on xyz date so we can say goodbye”. And then everyone took a souvenir (if by souvenir you mean a heavy buffet, a set of dining chairs, etc.) We told all the friends, random neighbors, cousins, etc. “The place needs to be broom clean by ABC. Here is the phone number of the management office so you can arrange for your truck or van”. And then we were out of the logistics loop. Most everyone took a tray, crystal bowl, knick-knack, framed art work, and the die-hards indeed arranged for a truck and movers to come get furniture.
I thought it was a stupid idea and was just going to create more work for us-- but truthfully, the folks who stopped by WANTED stuff (and to say goodbye to us- the kids even though we are all grown up). One neighbor cleaned out my mom’s “junk” drawer and took scissors, tape, random flashlights. Another took an unopened 24 pack of paper towels from Costco. Whatever they could carry (some neighbors made multiple trips) and truthfully, stuff was gone in a flash.
The management office there was pretty strict about days, times for trucks-- but hey, you want a free mid-century modern dining room with buffet and china closet, you can find a moving company that will show up next Tuesday at 8 am.
Hugs to you.