Your parents have finally reached the point at which they can no longer live alone. Or perhaps they have passed on. In either case, you are left with a vacant home that needs to be cleared out before it can be sold. You have a big job ahead of you. What do you do?
My Divine Concierge specializes in these kinds of jobs. We have years of experience helping people clear vacant homes, helping others downsize, and helping still others deal with hoarding situations. If there is a possible scenario for cleaning out a home, we have dealt with it.
We can come in and help decide the fate of the possessions in the home. We can even help dispose of those possessions to some degree. However, maximizing the financial value of things left behind requires more than gathering things up and throwing them in a dumpster. To monetize the process, you have a few options.
Hold a Garage or Yard Sale
We often work with clients who choose to hold a garage or yard sale prior to the final clearing. They put everything out in the hope of selling as much as possible, knowing that whatever is left will either be donated to charity or thrown away.
This is something we help with all the time. We can help prepare for the sale, price items, and even haul away what doesn’t sell. We can help clients decide what items to put in the sale as opposed to those that probably won’t due to age, condition, etc. The assistance of our concierge professionals can make preparing for a garage sale a lot easier.
Have an Estate Sale
Consider an estate sale like a garage sale on steroids. The one significant difference with estate sales is that you are hiring a company to come in and handle the whole thing for you. That company will send experienced appraisers who will look through and value all the items in the home. Particularly expensive items might be removed and sent to auction or, as an alternative, sold to individuals or dealers that collect those things.
Whatever is not sent out is then priced to sell. Items remaining after the estate sale are either donated to charity, sent to auction, or disposed of. The estate sale company keeps a portion of the proceeds to cover its own costs.
Send Everything to Auction
A third option is to send all the possessions to auction. There are two ways this is done in most communities. First, the auction house comes to pick everything up. They then take the possessions back to their warehouse so that they can be sorted through. Whatever is deemed worth selling is put into the next auction; the rest is disposed of. Again, the auction house keeps a percentage of the proceeds for itself.
The second model involves the auction company actually purchasing the contents of the home straight up. They then haul the possessions away and auction them as they see fit. The upside of this model is that you will know up front how much money you’ll get for the possessions in the house. The downside is that the auction house prices the possessions based on a worst-case scenario. You could actually do better at auction if you are willing to take the risk.
No matter how you decide to clear out the home your parents left behind, we can help make the job easier. Contact My Divine Concierge to find out just what we can do. We would be more than happy to answer your questions and, if needed, give you an estimate.