Estate Sales – How Do They Work?

How to have an estate sale or liquidation.

When certain life events hit, people may find themselves needing to liquidate many of their belongings, or those of their families. While the process may seem overwhelming to an individual, professional companies are available to handle the entire estate liquidation, from beginning to end.

An Estate Sale is also called a tag sale or an estate liquidation. Unlike property auctions which normally deal with a few items, estate sales deal with liquidating many belongings and sometimes an entire home or estate.

The reasons for having an estate sale differ family to family. While most people associate an estate sale with the death of the owner, there are many other reasons to hold one. Often times estate sales are held because a family is moving far away, is going through a divorce, is forced to liquidate belongings due to foreclosure or has other reasons for selling off all of their items.

Estate Sales - How do they work?

An estate sale is not a yard sale or a garage sale.

Estate sales normally deal with all the families possessions, not just the few things they no longer need. Unlike yard sales where stuff is just thrown out on the lawn, estate sales are normally staged in the same way a realtor would stage a house they are selling. Since an estate sale usually involves everything in the home, each room is staged to show the items in the best way possible. During the sale, shoppers walk room to room and are able to see the items as they are used in the home.

Estate Sales are sometimes called tag sales because each individual item in the home is tagged with a price. The thought of having to appraise and tag everything is overwhelming to most. Can you imagine going into a walk-in closet and putting a value on every item, or walking through your living room and tagging every piece, from large furnishings to the smallest knickknacks? Probably not. That is where professional estate sale companies come in.

Professional estate sale companies employ appraisers of all kinds. From high end art to used furniture to clothing or shoes, they know the market value and are able to price items large or small. Estate sale professionals are also able to advise you in regards to the best way to get the most for your possessions. Some items may get better prices at auction, others may be offered to collectors while others get staged inside the home for the sale.

Many people do not realize an estate sale is an option or don’t realize that they are able to hire someone to handle it all for them.

Often times when there is a death in the family and the house is supposed to be sold with proceeds split between family members, people don’t know what to do with the contents and never realize that an estate sale will help them liquidate it all rather than having to store, throw out or donate everything. Clearing out an entire house requires spending lots of money. Holding an estate sale allows the estate to gain money, often times thousands and the estate sale company may also be able to help with moving, clean-out and any donations following the sale.

Estate sale companies work on commissions, so, they are just as interested in getting the best prices for you as you are.

When you hire an estate sale company, there aren’t any upfront costs. The company will discuss their commission structure and only be paid at the end as a percentage of the profits.

Estate Sales - How do they work?

AESWON is an estate sale / estate liquidation company that serves the greater Los Angeles area as well as the Palm Springs area.

We handle it all for you – we will come in, appraise everything, stage your house, tag every item, promote the sale to our network of collectors & designers, promote the sale to the general public and cover all the advertising fees.

We will also:

  • Advise about the best way to sell certain items
  • Photograph everything and send the photos to buyers
  • Handle all the signage
  • Schedule the event and hire the staff
  • Hire security if needed
  • Handle all the credit card processing
  • Staff the cash registers
  • Handle all the sales taxes
  • Provide itemized spreadsheets for the transactions
  • Handle the accounting and give you a check at the end

If needed, we are able to help with clean-out, moving, and donations.

Take a look at our past estate sales to get an idea of the estates we have sold in the past.