One of the questions we get most is "We have all this stuff, what should we do?" It could be someone who is downsizing their home after the kids have moved out. Maybe it is someone who is moving from their home to some form of Senior Living, or maybe it is an adult child trying to figure out what to do with Mom or Dad's stuff. The process can be overwhelming, I know I have found myself frozen trying to figure out even where to start helping my own family in the past.
Today, there are so many different options available and professionals who will take that stress off your shoulders, and more importantly your back and cardiovascular system. We at Caring Transitions offer a wide variety of services depending on what the client most wants and needs. There are sort and organizing, decluttering, packing, moving, redecorating the new place, estate sales, online auctions, and full clean outs on the menu. But which is best for you?
Let's look at Online Auctions vs onsite Estate Sales. For an Estate Sale, the best option is if everything in the house can be for sale and not having things intermixed that are not. Buyers tend to fixate on what they cannot have. Also for an Estate Sale, we will look at the safety of the buyers who are coming, what is the availability of safe parking? Our marketing drives a lot of traffic to the sale, we must have places for them to park. So nice wide streets that are not high traffic at high speeds is a must. If your house meets this then that might be the best option, or maybe not, depending on what you have in that house.
With Online Auctions they can be used if parking is not ideal, or if you have items you aren't going to sell throughout the house as well. If you have some unusual, collectible or interesting smaller items that are easily shipped, then with the online auction your sale truly goes national and you might see some much higher prices on something desirable. We have seen a couple Star Wars toys go for more than 700.00, an art print more than 600.00, a stingray bicycle more than 500.00 and so much more. Those would be highly unlikely to bring those numbers at an Estate Sale. But large furniture normally bring much more at an Estate Sale than Online.
So the answer may well be maybe we should meet, take a good look at the house and decide accordingly. We always offer a free analysis and estimate, just give us a call.