There’s always the weekly garage sales to dig through, but if you are after some higher quality furniture, antiques, or collectibles, this Money magazine article about estate sales suggests another option. Estate sales are similar to garage sales, except the process is more formal and many times everything in the entire house is marked with a price tag. You walk in, snoop around, and pick up what you want. Everything often must be sold within the 1-3 day sale. It’s usually after a death, but there might be a number of other causes.
The article has a bunch of good tips, including:
- Call head to find out what specific items are available beforehand, so you can do your homework.
- Arrive either really early to get the best selection, or really late for the best haggling.
- Bring tools like a big tote bag, bubble wrap, a flashlight.
- Use the internet or phone-a-friend to prices things instantly while browsing.
To find a sale, there are newspaper classified ads, Craigslist, and local liquidator firms. There’s also EstateSales.net, which if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area there is a sale of the contents of four model homes Friday-Sunday in Discover Bay. (Wonder if this indicates good or bad news?) I like the idea of good furniture at steep discounts! I hope it’s better organized than this picture from another listing in the area:
Also, I found that it’s actually better to use the “Find Companies” section of EstateSales.net and look for local liquidator firms; they usually provide a link to their websites. I have found several estates sales which are only listed on the individual firm websites. Anyhow, although I don’t think I’d be a good antique flipper on eBay, I still think it would be interesting to go to one of these. Anyone have any good stories?
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These used to be the bestBEST place for photography equipment, since most everyone buys cameras at some point, then kept them. Now that everyone’s gone digital, it’s not as attractive.
Also a great buy for tools and dishware, if you’re ass broke like ma-self.
I’ve also heard that all kinds of cool stuff gets unloaded for really cheap at storage space sales… this can apparently be a good way to make money (resell the stuff on eBay). I’ve never visited one before myself, but as soon as I get a few spare minutes one of these days I think I’ll look into it. 🙂
You know what I used to see all the time when I was an apartment dweller? The apartment’s trash bin would be filled to the brim with absolutely usable stuff (especially baby items and furniture, it seemed) whenever someone moved out of their apartment. It was as if they had suddenly been evicted or station-changed (military) and just didn’t have anything else to do with their stuff on quick notice so they chucked it. Of course, maybe they were just lazy. It was a huge waste and I would think people could make some money grabbing that stuff and reselling it. In fact, some college campuses have services that offer to take student’s stuff at the end of the year, which would be a great business idea to replicate in non college towns.
Ive heard stories of entire sets of nice dining ware and things like that going for basically nothing. Im sure most of what is around is junk but every once in a while…
Well, my company forgot to pay for their dues for one the storage we had. Supposedly, the storage place sent us multiple warnings before they auctioned off all the Cisco routers ($2000 and up to $5000) for like $100-$500. I guess if you know what those things worth, you can make a fortune.
My wife and I used to frequent these sales quite often, and then resold the stuff on ebay. At our peak, we were bringing in about $1000 per month by doing this. Not a bad side income, plus the auctions were fun to go to, kinda like a treasure hunt. I recently went to an auction and got a large 15″ powered subwoofer for my home theater system for $30 bucks! That was a huge bargin!
My most interesting story about auctions is when I purchased a 1979 Hammond Console Organ. It looked newer than it was, and it played fine. I bid up to $500 and won it. I listed it on ebay and found an interested party. I sold it for $800 with free shipping. The problem was that shipping cost would put me in the hole, so I rented a trailer and delivered it myself. After all said and done, we had a nice weekend, and only lost $100 on the deal, and that was probably from the overnight stay for the delivery. I learned my lesson, to only buy smaller products that are easier to ship! LOL!
My suggest is to look for local auctioneers’s websites. They usually have pictures of some of the items that will be sold. This way you can see if it is worth your time to go or not.
I looooove going to estate sales, but will only buy for myself, rather than to sell. At least where I live (Boston) the dealers have already assessed and purchased whatever they can sell for a profit. I have had some luck (unwittingly!) at country auctions in Maine and the thrill of participating in an auction makes it even more fun! On the whole, though, I think it’s naive to think that you’ll be able to easily turn over a nice profit on estate sale stuff … unless you’re already a dealer.
I had a neighbor who would go to some of the storage bin auctions (like Public Storage). They generally work like this:
The company opens the storage bin for a limited time before the auction begins. Potential bidders have an opportunity to browse the storage bin, but, obviously, can not remove any contents. Bidding for the whole storage bin begins shortly after the viewing time has ended, and the highest bidder must remove all the contents of the bin, junk and all.
This could be a potential windfall for a lucky bidder if they uncovered a bunch of jewelry or the like, hidden in some old boxes. Then again, the idea of buying junk to remove the junk and then paying to junk the junk at the dump, tends to diminish the appeal of storage bin auctions. I think these are usually frequented by swap meet (aka flea market) sellers.
Check out storagetreasures.com for great listings!
I only started going to yard sales and estate sales just over a year ago and wish I’d have started a lot sooner. I’ve had so much fun I’m starting my own business driving customers in my limo to sales now. There are some great bargains and what’s really nice is that people with less than modest means can afford to have nice things instead of the junk like chip-wood products and crap that doesn’t last very long found in the majority of department and discount stores. I’m replacing nearly everything in my house with quality and for a lot less than what I paid for the cheap junk I’m getting rid of! I hope my customers can turn a profit on their finds at these sales and continue to call me back to go on my treasure hunt tours. It’s a great way to make new friends too!