Estate sale companies can help with physical, emotional toll of clearing out a home
A death in the family or a major move are among the most stressful events in life.
Emptying a house packed with a lifetime of possessions can be overwhelming. That’s where estate sale companies come in.
“The majority of the time we do a sale is when someone has passed away and the family needs to empty the house. We also do a lot of sales where someone is moving into assisted living. Either way, someone is most likely trying to empty a house to put it on the market,” said John Hunter, co-owner of Alfred-dawn Estate Sales.
Hunter and wife Lori have been doing local estate sales for a number of years.
“It’s a very emotional time for people, and we help them through the process,” Hunter said.
Alfred-dawn Estate Sales will do sales anywhere within about 90 miles from Texarkana.
An estate sale can include items from barns and outbuildings.
“We sell farm equipment and gun collections to small knick-knacks and household items. We tell them (the family) not to throw anything away. We sell everything from $20,000 tractors down to napkins,” Hunter said. “People may want something like an old pair of blue jeans. Items like cleaning supplies fly off the shelves.”
All the family has to do to prepare is select the items they want to keep.
“That’s all they have to do,” Hunter said.
The estate sale company then sorts and prices the remaining items.
Sometimes, while preparing for the sale, an employee might find something he or she thinks the family would want.
“We make sure we put that item away for them,” Hunter said.
A typical estate sale usually starts on a Friday and lasts two to three days.
“The best time is Friday morning,” Hunter said. Items are listed full price the first day of the sale and are usually dropped to half price later on, Hunter said.
Prices are usually set based on what people in the area will spend.
“You have got to know your market,” Hunter said. Though many people choose to clean out a relative’s home themselves and hold their own garage sales, it’s not practical for everyone to do that. Hiring an estate sale company makes more sense when family members live in another state, Hunter said.
Estate sales usually also draw a large crowd of buyers, and any items left over are also removed by the company holding the sale, Hunter said. A buyout company usually offers a price for what’s left, he said.
Seeing a family have peace of mind over the estate is a major reason estate sale companies do what they do, Hunter said.
“That’s probably one of the reasons we do this. It’s the worst time of their lives, but we can help them through the process,” he said.
Gale Woolsey of Texarkana experienced the deaths of her in-laws, her mother and her grandmother in the span of just a couple of years.
“I had not one house to empty but two,” she said. She worked on her in-laws’ house herself and had a sale with the items that were left.
By the time she lost her mother and grandmother, who lived together, she realized it might be emotionally harder to go through each household item herself.
“I felt comfortable having someone come in and do that,” she said. “It just takes a load off your mind and shoulders.”
Woolsey met the Hunters while attending someone else’s sale and felt they would be a good match.
“I could not have asked for more compassion. They laugh and cry with you,” she said.
“I had my parent’s items, my grandmother’s items, and we had some of my in-laws items left. It was an extremely large sale, and it was much easier on me to have an estate sale. I signed the contract and gave them the key.
Woolsey said it was hard watching some of her mother’s antiques go, but she didn’t have room for all of them.
“You can only keep so much. You get to the point where you have walk away,” she said.