Buying an entire estate....Maybe

[trdhrdr007]

I'm going to take a look at an entire estate tomorrow. No idea if I'll be able to work a deal but am hopreful. If I'm successful this will be the 4th one I've bought in the last couple years. Anybody else buy estates and/or contents of sheds/garages/etc?

 

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[cyberdan]

How do you approach someone or even find someone that has the estate? Look in the obits and track down next of kin? Do you ask them what they think they would get if they had a yard sale and then offer more?

 

[clovis97]

I've bought tons of contents before, but mostly, it was from an estate company or at an auction.

"We're selling the entire contents of the shed, in it's entirety, from the floor to the rafters. Who wants to start the bidding at..."

Those are often the two sentences that can get your wife really mad at you, especially when you tell her that there are two more loads to bring home, and you've already unloaded two full truckloads in the driveway.

 

[trdhrdr007]

It isn't easy to find an entire estate to make an offer on. I work part time with an estate sale company so I know a lot of people in the business & I get leads there. I also pass out my card to people I know. In the relatively small town I live in the hardest part about making money buying to resell is finding inventory.

There are times when the heirs just want everything gone in a certain time frame. The 1st estate I ever bought the lady died 2 weeks before Christmas & lived in a rental property. The heirs didn't want to pay rent for January. They tried to get everything out for a week before they realized they couldn't pull it together. Then they called the estate sale people I help out. There wasn't any way to put a sale together so they told the heirs that they knew a guy that buys estates & passed on my cell number. I made a deal with them.....& ended up moving the whole estate the 2 days before Christmas because I was leaving town the day after.

 

[vpnavy]

What have been some of your best finds trdhrdr in the estates you bought?

 

[trdhrdr007]

It's really hard to say what my best finds were. My favorite find in the first estate I bought was several boxes of vintage baby clothes. These dated from the early 1900's through the 50's & included dressing gowns & hand embroidered linens. I didn't have a reliable outlet for that type item, so I cut a deal with a couple ladies that work for the same estate sale company I do. They cleaned & pressed everything & sold it through their booth at the antique mall. I gave these boxes an inventory value of $200, collected 2.5 times that within 4 months, have averaged a $30 monthly check for the last year, & expect to continue to collect checks like that for another year. Not the biggest or most glamorous score but not too bad for something I thought I'd end up wholesaling to another dealer.

 

[Beans]

I got lucky one time. Ran across as estate sale, family came in out of town and did not want to spend a lot of time on the sale. They had a converted garage full of old books. I bought a couple and I kept looking for more. The lady said you still looking and I said yes, and then I said how much for all the books? She did not know so I made a reasonable offer and she took it. Over a 1000 old books for a good price just because I made an offer. Really did not expect her to take it, good thing I had the money and really wanted the books.

 

[trdhrdr007]

This estate is a couple hours away so I was beat when I got home. The person who lived there had been in & out of the hospital for the last several months. The home was in pretty rough shape. It's in the country & I could smell the rodents had moved in. Various members of the family had been rummaging through the house & you could tell lots of items were gone.

Having said all that it looks like this could be a decent deal if I can negotiate a price we are both happy with. There were still several pieces of nice antique/vintage furniture & smalls were everywhere. The heirs told me that their Mom had been collecting for over 50 years. You could tell she had a wide range of interest & a good eye. I've got photos/notes to go over & will try to come up with a price sometime today. The heirs seem to have realistic expectations but you never know until you make an offer.

 

[desertmoons]

I do not buy estates. But I was at a garage sale toward 1pmish last week and got to talking with the owners. They said "We wish someone would come along and just buy everything for a hundred bucks"
You could tell they were just ready to call it a day.

What was left was 2 lawn mowers, a dresser a dryer and a bunch of little stuff, clothes etc. So I suppose it never hurts to make a blanket offer especially if you have a pick up. I did not.

 

[trdhrdr007]

This deal did not work out. It turned out to be a fairly frustrating experience. Here's the story.

This estate was over 2 hours from me. I don't like to drive that far without making it clear what I can pay. My first contact was by email & I made it clear I could only pay 25-35% of retail & gave them my number. They called within a few hours, we talked for a while & I again told them I can only pay 25-35% of retail. We had several other discussions before I drove up there & in each one I stressed I was a wholesale buyer.

When I got there the house was a wreck & it was obvious the heirs had pulled a good bit of furniture & what they considered the better small items. Still some nice furniture pieces & decent medium/small items. I spent the better part of 3 hours taking notes & pics so I would have a good idea of what's left. After I got home I checked everything out & researched a few of the larger items I wasn't sure about.

I work part time for an estate sale company & have gotten pretty good at guesstimating what a well run, advertised, & attended sale will gross. In my neck of the woods an estate sale of that type gets fairly close to retail. I figured this estate would gross between $6-8000. The location was so remote that I really believe it will be at the very low end of that range. Monday morning I submitted an offer based on the % of retail I had told them I could pay.


Last night I got a response to my offer. It was pretty short & to the point......."Your offer is unacceptably low in light of the response we have had." Turns out they had been advertising & had several people call. I don't have any problem with people looking to maximize the amount of money they receive. What's aggravating is that I made it clear I could only make a wholesale offer. They knew that & still wasted my time. I'm not the new guy & am reasonably certain any offers they get from people in business who are ready, willing & able to buy the entire estate will be in the same ballpark as mine. The frustrating part is that in a situation like this when they finally face reality they will either sell to the last person to make an offer or will end up taking the time, effort & expense to piece it out. It's been my experience that people almost never call back the 1st person to make an offer because that is too much like admitting they were wrong.

 

[diggummup]

I'm not the new guy & am reasonably certain any offers they get from people in business who are ready, willing & able to buy the entire estate will be in the same ballpark as mine. The frustrating part is that in a situation like this when they finally face reality they will either sell to the last person to make an offer or will end up taking the time, effort & expense to piece it out. It's been my experience that people almost never call back the 1st person to make an offer because that is too much like admitting they were wrong.

I hear you and your probably right. Frustrating as it is, that is the reality of the situation. Just respond back with a thank you, good luck and if you change your mind my offer still stands. Better yet, maybe you should get someone else you know to throw out an offer to them (for you) for an extra couple hundred or something, just for the heck of it. I think 35% retail is as high as any estate buyer should/can go. It's not like you can sell it for retail anyway. With the exception of a few pieces that you can flip online that is. Unless you have a store and don't mind it sitting for months to sell, you have to buy low. I wonder if they actually had any more bids at the time of their response to you? Or if they were just betting that they would get a better offer because they had a lot of "response"? If the latter, they may be in for a rude awakening.

 

[trdhrdr007]

I sent polite thanks for your time yada yada emails so I didn't burn any bridges. If it was local I would get someone else to put an offer in. Due to distance that's an all day affair. I know they hadn't had anyone in to look before me. They told me they had several calls but didn't have any other showings set up. In fact, they told me that an auction company called & they had several people call looking to buy individual pieces, but no one looking for the whole lot. I checked out their ads. They have 5 or 6 pictures that show the pieces that make up about 80% of the value so I'm not surprised they have been getting a good response. Anyone that shows up expecting to see a lot more than whats pictured will be surprised.