My parents just moved to an apartment. They took very little furniture with them due to space limitations. My 82-yo mother is determined to have a sale but the house is so full that she doesn’t know where to begin. She has never been one to get rid of anything, always thinking she can sell it and make a dime. I was over there yesterday helping and she showed me the towels she had used in college!
Even after her “moving/living estate/garage” sale, I know there will be tons of stuff left over. What do you do with it? The house will be sold.
There are companies that handle this type of thing - we live in a neighborhood that is the “holding pen” for the retirement home, and we frequently go to neighborhood estate sales handled by these companies. I think they deal with the removal of anything not purchased during the estate sale.
When my parents moved into assisted living, after us children took whatever wanted, we used a company that came and looked at their stuff, and made an cash offer. They came in and took everything. Some of they resold, and I’m sure some of it was thrown away. It was great not having to deal with all of this ourselves.
If there is a charity like a church that will pick up and give the items to people who need it, that’s ideal. My relative did that and was happy. Anything that didn’t sell at the garage sale was picked up by the church to gas a free store that allows folks to shop there at no charge. I believe she got some minor tax seduction but these days if no itemizing not needed.
Take a tax deduction? Might not be worth it considering the new standard deduction and possible qualified appraisal needed if house contents over $5k value.
Friend was executor of an estate. He contacted several “estate” sales folks. They didn’t charge him a nickel…they agreed to liquidate the contents of the house, and paid him a lump sum for everything. I’m sure the estate liquidator gave him a low number…but the goal was to get the house empty. And it worked.
But first…do take things you want out…or anything very valuable like jewelry.
If your goal is to clear out the house…forget the amount of money they pay you. Be grateful they will be hauling everything away by a certain date.
This is a small town, but there IS an estate sale company. My mom refused to let them do the sale because they keep 1/3 of the profit. I think now she realizes that would have been a great deal, but the estate sale company is booked up until July and my parents need to clear it out and sell the house ASAP. I tried to explain that they attract a better class of buyer and mark the prices higher than garage sale prices so it works out in the end, plus they get rid of all the leftovers, but she wouldn’t listen to me.
Mom has been begging us to come get stuff. I went over one evening (we live in same town) and saw a few favorite things. I mentioned it was too bad that neither of us had a place for one of them, but then said I could put it in my pantry. Oh no. She would keep it and find a place for it! And she has a little child’s chair. I told her I would take it for my grandbaby who is due next month. All of a sudden she needed it to rest her feet on or something. She definitely has a problem letting go of stuff. And if she thinks someone else wants it, that makes it all the more appealing to her.
Do not involve her in the decision of what to keep and what to toss. You go to the house and retrieve anything clearly valuable, then sell the rest to an estate liquidator. Give her the money and tell her that this is what the contents of her house brought in. Reassure her that you removed anything of value. Do not let her talk you into storing anything you don’t want. Neither she nor you will ever have use for those things again.
–Massmomm, whose 82 year old mother STILL has an expensive storage unit she cannot afford.
My sympathies @musicmom1215, my SIL went through something similar 2 summers ago.
It was sooo painful for her parents to get rid of stuff.
I guess I would have to ask her when she wants to keep something, where is she going to put it? What does she have room for?
The good news is that you got them to move, now you have to get them to get rid of the stuff they have.
This is what happened to my SIL and it’s not a pretty story. My advice is to send your mom far away so she can’t see what is going on.
They moved and had already had a sold house so everything had to be gone within a certain time frame. They had contracted a estate sale company so they came and priced it all. Some times the sale goes well and some times it doesn’t. My sil’s parents did not go well. Before the sale, they had to designate what would happen to the stuff that didn’t sell. They did not pay attention to this (it was in the contract from the estate sale co). When the sale was over, it was sold in bulk to someone to haul it away. They could have donated it but didn’t. There was tons left and it was sold for very little. My sil’s parents did not react very well, and got in a big fight with the estate sales owner. It wasn’t pretty.
I know that the estate sale co is not available until July now but you need to weight your options and decide what you can handle. I personally think that if you let your mother hold garage sales, the stuff will still be there a year from now. So make a list of options and present them and tell her she has to pick one option.
You can try and have a garage sale but make options as to what will happen afterwards because I can almost guarantee you that there will be tons that is left over and you need a plan for that.
Personally I think she shouldn’t be involved in what happens during the sale of it. Too traumatic.
But you need to decide how much you want to be involved. Because she’ll want all of your time and effort if you let her. You decide what you can do and be firm.
I did this two years ago. My folks found a local antiques dealer/flea market owner (depending on your viewpoint) and she took it all. I think we did it in two stages. The first time we saw what she really wanted and she paid good money for some items. Other stuff she wanted but we weren’t quite ready to give up. When she came back the second time, we were willing to give up more stuff and knew how to negotiate a little better. By then my folks had sold the house and were under time pressure.
This may be the “estate sale” solution with a downscale label.
She sent me an email Friday evening (I didn’t read it until late that night) with the subject line “help.” So I changed my own plans and went over there Saturday and told her to tell me what she wanted me to do. She had no plan. She wanted me to tell HER what to do. That’s when I told her to donate it all. She told me she was GOING to have a sale and make a little money off it. I did climb up on a ladder and take all the stuff down from up high and I opened the tiny attic opening and removed the few things that had been stuffed up there. Most had disintegrated from the Texas heat. I helped her set up some card tables and move some stuff around.
I work full time. I’m very possessive of my weekends. I have a two-day project of my own that I nixed to go help her. She is wanting to have the sale next weekend. I don’t plan to go help with it. Maybe that’s mean, but every time we have had a garage sale together, she always finds some excuse to leave me there alone. I HATE garage sales with a passion. I’ve never made enough money to make it worthwhile.
After the house is empty, I will be happy to go in and clean the whole thing. I prefer cleaning over selling any day.
Thank goodness she hasn’t asked to store her things in my garage. She just wants me to cram my house as full as hers is!
Can you hire an estate sale company from another town, since the one in your town is booked up? She will definitely get more money that way. And the remains of the sale can be sold off in bulk.
That is what we did with my mother’s house when she had to move to a small apartment.
We did this last year for my dad. It was a huge undertaking, many weekends of relentless work, many dumpsters filled (which are not cheap). In the end, it was actually very difficult to sell nice things on line or in the paper. I am sure an estate agent would have been able to sell the furniture and vintage items he had, however he did not want to do that. Anything decent was donated to charity or left on the curb and magically disappeared by the next day.
One third of the take for an estate sale is very reasonable. We opted for this for another elderly relative who died and left us to dispose of the estate. After commission, they generated some thousands of dollars because they knew how to price things fairly. Sorry the window of opportunity was lost for your parents.
The upside, you do not have to undertake this process while grieving for a deceased parent. I hope they are happy in their new apartment.
She’s already moved out. They had movers take the big things. They (actually she, because my dad is doing nothing to help) is now finding little things that she thinks she can fit into the apartment.
And clothes. That woman has more clothes than anyone I know. And she doesn’t go anywhere except bingo and the grocery store. She took semi-formal items she has had for years. She hasn’t needed anything like it in at least 10 years and I don’t see her ever going to any event where she would wear them. Plus they aren’t even in style anymore.
To be honest, most of the stuff is not worth an estate sale. The remaining furniture is just old, not antique. She has a lot of old glass ware and a few antique little things, but not enough to generate a lot of money. I really think she is working herself to death for a few hundred dollars, if that.
I hope there is some kind of liquidator around here who will come get it.
