Selling Estate personal property can be a time-consuming challenge for an executor.  Liquidation services such as estate sale companies and auction houses can liquidate large inventories quickly, but may leave executors wondering why their items didn’t bring more.

Your time is not free.

There are many ways to sell an item, and convert the item to cash for deposit in the Estate Bank account.  Often Executors bristle at the cost or commission of Auctions or Estate Sales companies, but the value is not often obvious until you look at the time it takes to move one item.  Multiply those ‘manhours’ that times the number of items in the undistributed personalty designated for liquidation, and the value becomes clear.

 

Research

Spend time looking at comp items to get an idea of the price to list the item.  EBay, Google, and Facebook Groups all provide good information to help determine price and desirability. There are appraisal sites valuemystuff.com, and Worthpoint, to help you get a more market-comparable price point on your item, but consider the costs involved.  A professional appraisal may be an option for certain items, however appraisal costs diminish profit.

Cleaning

To give your item the best chance of selling, for the best possible price, prepare the item by cleaning it in order to present it in the best possible light.

Locate The Buyer

Here’s the rub.  Finder the buyer who will pay the price you want can take a while.  For the specialty items and collections,   Even more so, When you talk to resellers, you realize they earn their money with their contacts and knowledge of the market.  So you’re sacrificing asking price for time saved hunting for just the right buyer,  A similar dynamic is in effect when you hire a liquidation company.  Maximizing an item’s price is time-expensive.

Selling Estate Personal Property Online

Note: there may be some seller’s fees associated with listing an item for sale online.

1. Photograph item for listing.
2. Provide details for a listing, including any research not discovered during the research phase above. Post photos from above.
3. New? If you are listing on an auction site such as EBay or another similar site for the first time, there is some time to register and get set up, this should be included in the calculation of time to budget for a sale.  There may also be some time to learn how the process works.
4. Checking-in: Depending on the dynamics of the sale, some monitoring of the item through sale, including Q&A with potential buyers, should be considered.

 

Sold

Once your item is sold, consider time for packaging the item as necessary considering its fragility.  Consider the time and expense of the post office visit.  Do you have the proper packaging, or will that require additional time and money to acquire?  Packing and addressing time varies depending on the item.  If professional shipping prep is necessary, consider the cost of the professional work and travel to and from the professional pack and ship location.

 

Payment Collection

Payment collection is normally straightforward on most online selling platforms.   Nonetheless, consider collection in your time calculation.

 

Conclusion

The time of each stage in the selling process might not seem like much.  However, full amount of time can put a serious dent in your monetary “take-away”.

Your time is not free.

Read More

Google Lens: Personal Property Evaluation Tool

Facebook Groups for Personal Property Research

The Appraisal Foundation’s “The Personal Property Owner’s Guide to Appraisal Services”