The Estate Sale Diaries: Real Estate Parallels and Bravo's Million Dollar Listing

Despite all the reality shows featuring antiques, pawn shops appraisals, picking and collecting, I still find Million Dollar Listing on Bravo to be the most relatable to the estate sale business.  

Bravo's logo.  Image from Wikipedia and used to illustrate the network that shows Million Dollar Listing (LA and NY versions).

By no means am I valuing any item we broker the sale of at a million dollars, but the realtors' explanations to their clients are incredibly familiar.  

This is a good offer – the client wanted more, but the price is still fair.  We will start it lower than you want.  You paid a premium to personalize it; it is what you like, but the new owner will want something different. 

Whether buying from an individual or selling for them, the psychology of the seller is the same, whether it is the sale of the house or the items that filled it.

The seller always sees his item (whether a house or porcelain bowl) as better than anyone else's.  It is the professional’s job to objectively value the item.  Sometimes an item will be sold at a loss because the market changed.  The real estate market has taken an incredibly well-publicized and gut-wrenching hit.  Less publicity has been received by the dramatic downturn of Victorian furniture, Fostoria, depression glass and other decorating pieces associated with the typical grandmother's house in the wake of mid-century modern’s rise in demand and price.  You can either wait out the market, hope for the perfect buyer who will pay the premium for the item he's been looking everywhere for, or move it at a loss.  The market and the professional set the price, not the owner.

Image via hermanmiller.com.  Customizable and starting at $4499 (new).

This Eames chair was your father’s favorite chair and you have many fond memories of him relaxing in it with his New York Times.  It holds many memories for you, but to a professional and every potential buyer, it is a used Eames chair.  I do not mean any insult to your father’s memory and I am sure he was an incredible father and a wonderful human being.  The reality is that unless he was famous, his chair does not have an increased monetary value.  Even if he was famous, to sell it at a higher price than a comparable Eames chair (in style, condition and age) requires proof of ownership – either photographic documentation or documents signed by you or your father’s representative certifying that it was in fact part of his estate.  Ownership only matters when it is significant.  I'm sorry, but sentiment has no monetary value.

If an interested buyer makes an offer lower than what the seller is asking, that is not a personal insult.  While a seller often views the professional’s price as firm, most professionals set an item at a price that would be both ideal and fair.  The professional expects offers and negotiation.  The word negotiate should not be anathema to the seller, it is the reality of the exchange of goods.  The only time negotiation is off the table is at auction – and even then, it is only the truly exceptional pieces (as evaluated by objective professionals) that can actually command prices above their estimates.  (Consider the ultra-high-end art market, where the sale of one painting could buy several houses featured on Million Dollar Listing).  Negotiation is expected in any person-to-person sale.  You cannot negotiate at Barneys, but you can in real estate, antique stores and estate sales.  Set your expectations lower than what you are asking, not higher.

For all the stress inherent in these person-to-person sales, maybe I would get a higher return on my investment of time and energy working in real estate.  Something to consider. . .

The Estate Sale Diaries - Beware The Clingy Client

Two children are playing in a playroom.  Billy has his train and Emily is plundering the toy box in search of something entertaining.  She pulls out Billy’s old G.I. Joe from the detritus and begins running around the room playing with the toy.  Suddenly, threatened with the loss of his toy, Billy has no interest in his train and desperately wants his G.I. Joe back, never mind that he last played with it two years before. 

The above story is a basic phenomenon seen in playrooms around the country.  What most people don’t realize is that it is an aspect of human nature that never quite leaves us.  Take the case of the Clingy Client:

When we conduct estate sales, it is under the pretense that a client is ready to part with his things – whether he has inherited these things from a relative or accumulated them over his own lifetime.  Many clients are happy to see their possessions go to a new home.  However, every so often we encounter the client who, for all intents and purposes, was ready to part with his things until another potential owner comes along.  Then, and only then, does this client come up with alternative uses for the item, thus inflating the price he must now receive in order to part with it.

Sorting through the possessions accumulated over the course of a lifetime is a time-consuming and emotionally taxing process full of difficult decisions. This stressful situation is only compounded by the overwhelming clutter that seems to expand with each drawer emptied.  Of the hundreds, or thousands, of items processed for a sale, it is possible that an item or two were left in error.  It is also possible that the client forced himself to part with an item, but found himself regretting the potential loss significantly.  These are all normal issues with normal clients.  We, like any compassionate firm, will “rescue” an item from the sale when we are notified the client has just realized that he cannot find his uniform buttons, grandfather’s watch, or other small, but meaningful item.  We, like any business, must, however, draw the line when a client’s list of items to pull from the sale is longer than the list of items to be sold and only seems to increase as the sale progresses. 

The Clingy Client is why most estate sale companies prevent clients from attending their own sales.  This client is also why you may arrive at the door of an advertised estate sale only to find a Post-It note (left by the Clingy Client) declaring the sale cancelled - to the surprise of both the potential customers and the contracted professional.  


Once the Clingy Client sees someone else with his “toy,” the situation deteriorates for the estate sale agent, the sale customer interested in the “toy” and the Clingy Client himself.  In the most extreme cases, the thought of parting with an item is enough to catapult a planned sale from a profit-earning opportunity for both the estate sale company and the client into a waste of the company’s time, customer’s travel time and the client's energy convincing himself and everyone else he was ready for a sale in the first place.

Trademark Clingy Client moves:

• You, a customer who has unknowingly entered the domain of the Clingy Client, ask about an item and are not told the objective facts (it is 200 years old and in remarkable condition), but the personal history that has led to a subjective price (it was my dear mother’s favorite serving piece).

• Whether you are the estate sale company or an estate sale customer, the client segues from the sentimental value to a critique of the perceived low price it has been assigned.  Whether during a public sale or during preparations, if a client disagrees with pricing, it is best to bring the discussion of the purchase, and the sale as a whole, to a close.     

• Unless you are a Dishonest Estate Sale Company (with ridiculously low prices to empty the house with minimal expended effort or advertising expenses), a client should not have grounds to disagree with an expert’s designated prices.  If he does, and if he makes a big fuss about it, there are deeper rooted issues at play.

• No items are freed up for sale.  (Normal clients, upon seeing the types of things that do command cash in the resale market, often decide they would prefer the money to extra furniture or dishes and add items to the sale as it proceeds.)  

• Items are pulled from the sale in front of customers, or outside of public sale hours without communicating with the estate sale company.  Once a contract is signed, the client has committed to paying a percentage commission on items that sell.  If significant and expensive items are repeatedly pulled from the sale, the company is losing potential revenue.  When Trent Services commits to a sale, we consider the most significant pieces first.  Our commission and effort would be excessive for an average household.  However, we have had several Clingy Clients who have pulled the pieces that warranted our services leaving us with sub-standard collections to sell.  Naturally, these sales came to a quick and unpleasant end.

• Screaming.  In my experience, the clients who end up screaming, either for customers or estate sale companies to get out of their houses, are Clingy Clients.  They could probably be further diagnosed and described by an expert in the mental health field, but I do not have such expertise.

Beware the Clingy Client.  Even if the sale promises chests full of precious metals, you are better off staying in for the weekend.  After all, he will demand top dollar (for pieces that could not command top dollar in the best showrooms) only to decide he should never have considered parting with them in the first place.

The Estate Sale Diaries – Estate Sale 101

These FAQs are intended for estate sale customers.  Future posts will discuss advice for those needing an estate sale professional and common concerns of estate sale professionals.

Whether you have been inspired by vintage blogs and want to check out the estate sales on your own or are a veteran estate sale shopper, here are some tips and FAQS from Trent Services.

First off, what is an estate sale?  Does it always mean someone has died? 

You should think of an estate sale as the sale of a house’s contents.  It could not be called a house sale or a household sale because either of those terms conveys you either need a realtor or a blender (though the house itself may be for sale, as may a blender).  The owner of the house and its contents may have passed away or they may just be retiring and downsizing.  Trent Services conducts estate sales with executors and owners. 

A professional sale should have purged all personal items and information from the sale, and heir-approved items have been cleaned and priced, so it should feel more like a showroom than a home. It is normal to reflect on the collection or the human propensity to collect, but ruminating too much upon death can detract from the shopping experience.

I just need household basics; are estate sales just for fancy, expensive things?

Absolutely not, as discussed above, an estate sale can include the entire contents of a house – from gently used (or unused) appliances to mattresses to the antique and collectible.   Whether the owner has passed away or is downsizing, Trent Services has sold gently used mattress sets for less than $100.  Our niche does not include mattresses, so this is done as a service to the owner who needs them out of the house  Household basics can be very reasonably priced at estate sales, and you may find some (appliances, mugs, plates, even cleaning products) new in the box or barely used.

How do I find estate sales near me?

When I was in elementary school (post-internet, but pre-Mapquest), Saturdays began early with the classifieds, maps, and notes from grocery store bulletin board ads earlier that week.  

These days, one of the best sources is estatesales.net.  Companies pay to post ads, so they have an incentive to make it effective, but it is free for customers to find sales.  There is a limit to the number of photos the company can post so while you will never be able to see everything in advance, you should get a feel for the sale’s vibe (whether it is MCM, antique, colorful, packed or sparse).  Craigslist has expanded to even more cities and towns, so you can also find sales on craigslist.org (locate your nearest city/town).  Craigslist has no standards or hoops to jump through, so you will find estate sale ads of varying quality interspersed among yard sales and household item sales in the “garage sales” category (under “for sale”).  You can also look in your local paper’s classifieds section.  There are many “classic” estate sale buyers who still use only this source.  As the weekend approaches, and certainly on Saturday and Sunday, you may also notice signs posted in your neighborhood.

Tip:  Cast a wide net when you are looking for sales.  While Trent Services blankets the surrounding area (online and brick and mortar) with comprehensive ads, there are other professionals who are content to use only one of the above advertising options.  This saves them time and money, but it is intended to limit the crowd their sale gets.  Coupling this with a refusal to negotiate and they find themselves with the majority of a house’s contents either on consignment or as a buyout package at the conclusion of the sale.

The estate sale company has a lot of rules, what should I expect?

There are no industry standards when it comes to estate sales, though there are some common rules.  These rules are not meant to intimidate the well-intentioned customer, they have typically evolved from encounters with the over-eager and moderately disturbing customers. 

For instance, a company may have a start time as well as an earlier time at which you may arrive at the front door and obtain a number.  This is because most local dealers are in competition with each other at these sales and want to get in and out before others.  When I was in middle school helping set up the packing supplies for purchases inside a house the morning a sale was set to start, I scared the rest of the Trent Service staff by screaming.  I had looked up from the sales table towards the back of the house and met the eyes of a scruffy man who was standing in a bush with his face against the window.  He wanted a sneak peak of the house to know where to race first.  I wanted to hide under the table out of sight until the sale officially started. 

Tip (and good method to avoid arrest):  Do not go creeping around a house.  If you notice that estatesales.net often doesn’t post the address until shortly before the sale, that is to prevent calls to the police for trespassing, or worse, attempted burglary. 

Some estate sale shoppers rock a huge empty tote at the start of every sale.  Some estate sales post signs prohibiting large bags and totes.  I occasionally get asked if I need to hold onto a customer’s purse (whether its small or an oversized Longchamp).  Do not feel pressured to leave your purse with a company.  If they are firm about all purses, you can lock your purse in your trunk and just bring your wallet.  If you want to be green and use reusable bags, do not fill the bags during the sale without first asking the permission of the person running the sale.  People do shoplift from estate sales.  No one ever believes me when I tell them this, but apparently there are no areas safe from kleptomaniacs.  If you find yourself in love with more things than you can carry, ask to start a pile by the professional.  You might even protect your pile from other customers’ prying eyes by then concealing it in your bag on the floor.

Do I have to be there when the sale starts?

No, as I have previously alluded to, the beginning of most well-advertised sales in densely populated areas during estate sale season resembles a stampede.  Dealers and “professional estate sale shoppers” rush the door and disperse quickly.  This is also why some estate sale companies have a rule about how many people can be allowed in at a time.  If only 20 people are allowed in, the 21^st person often becomes critical of how much space there seems to be and how many people are upstairs vs. downstairs.  Those first people in are often in a rush to be the first in at a subsequent sale, so they will not be able to see everything (even though they may think otherwise).  If you are looking for a household basic or are just feeling crafty and do not know what will strike your fancy, the rushed atmosphere of the start of a sale is not worth it. 

Fact: Unless a sale priced every item in the house (from votive candleholders to victorian couches) at $1, or was to sparse to even justify the term “estate sale,” it will not sell out in an hour, or a day. 

Tip: Often there are further discounts and/or more room for negotiation on subsequent days, so if you hope to begin your estate sale shopping experience in a low-pressure, bargain-hunting atmosphere, you may prefer the second or third day.  

Happy hunting this weekend!

The Estate Sale Diaries – Prologue

As I have read through the estate sale, yard sale, and thrifting blogosphere, I have come across accounts of avoiding “professional” sales in lieu of sales run by the (presumably unsuspecting and consequently low-pricing) owners.

Depending on the company, pricing and sorting of items can happen in the days and nights leading up to the sale weekend (when the team descends on the house) or over a month (if the “team” is the sole proprietor)

A professional sale does not automatically mean high prices.  If the prices do seem high, it often means that a professional has evaluated an item to ascertain its age, authenticity, and value.  In the world of antiques and collectibles, this process is known as appraisal and will cost you by the hour, possibly with an multi-hour minimum.  Prices are still negotiable at an estate sale; however, while the “best price” may be reasonable, it will not be a yard sale price.

In the world of estate sales, there are Professional Appraisers and Professional Sticker-Appliers.  The "professionals" in the second category are my favorite.  These are the sales of quality and substance that warranted bringing in a professional.  Unfortunately for the owner or family, it is at a Professional Sticker-Applier’s sale that I found a significant 17^th century French engraving in excellent condition.  My favorite part – I only paid $40.  The piece had lasted on the wall for two days of the sale because with only a bit of masking tape reading “60”, no one paid attention to what seemed like an overpriced decorative print.   I had a special weapon at my disposal, my mother, Madame Trent, who happens to be a Professional Appraiser.  Based on examination of its well-preserved condition and top-notch framing job as well as research into the engraver's other works in major collections, Madame Trent concluded she would have priced it at $800 – and certainly provided her own description on a price tag.

While I love outsmarting the Professional Sticker-Appliers, I help run sales for a Professional Appraiser.  Through The Estate Sale Diaries, I will take my readers behind the scenes into the world of estate sales.  I will share tips on negotiating, finding household necessities, beating out dealers at the same sale, and leaving a sale happy.  The Estate Sale Diaries will feature more profiles of Professional Appraisers, Professional Sticker-Appliers and unforgettable types of clients and customers.

Thanks to backgroundfairy.com for the frame image used in the header for "The Estate Sale Diaries" feature and for my blog header!