Estate sales?
Art gal
Then we went to 2 estate sales. I paid a fortune for stuff. No bargains for
anything. What am I doing wrong???
Scarlett
Kris Baker
Art gal wrote in message ...
You paid retail. Formal estate sales are run by dealers who
stick "book price" (meaningless) on items, or by relatives who've
watched too many Antiques Roadshows and think all their
items are priceless antiquities.
The listings you see are probably from:
Dealers who bought the entire estate for one low price.
Heirs of the estate (or the actual owners, fudging).
Sellers who always put that in their listings, no matter
where they bought the items.
Before you purchase anything for resale, you have to know what
it will sell for.....then buy it for considerably less.
I see one seller using the phrase "Estate sale treasures" in
their listings, and I doubt they'll get rich from those items.
Kris
wh...@now.com
"Art gal" <artgor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:al59l3$ala$0...@206.97.57.69...
Just keep looking. I went to one estate sale and it turned out to be all
baby clothes. LOL
But yeah. try to find them that are running when a few others are. Also.
estate auctions are a gold mine sometimes. I get real lucky at those. Some
sales the stuff is priced way out of reach.
Richard Ward
Going to the wrong estate sales, going at the wrong time, living in the
wrong part of the country, buying the wrong merchandise. Any or all of
the above.
I can tell you what works for me, but it may not work for you. There
are several opportunities to get merchandise to sell on eBay at estate
sales. The first one comes when the sale first opens, grabbing items
that the person running the sale didn't know the true value of, but you
do. To do this you have to be near the front of the line, as the items
like this disappear after the first few minutes of the sale. This may
mean arriving thirty minutes to an hour before the sale starts, and
standing in line. It also means knowing which estate sale companies
tend to have nice estates, and getting on their email lists, as it
doesn't do you much good to stand in line an hour, and find nothing but
tupperware or old furniture. The next opportunity comes when the sale
makes it's final reduction, some may do this when the sale opens on the
final day, others may do it at a particular time on the final day,
others may do it whenever they damn well feel like it. If it's on the
final day of the sale, you need to find out what the reduction will be
(generally half), and figure out what you want at that price earlier in
the sale. Then get in line very early, and when the sale opens go
through the house grabbing whatever's on your list that didn't sell in
an earlier reduction. If it's at a set time on the final day, arrive
well before that time, pick up what you want, and browse for the next
hour until the prices drop. If it's whenever they feel like it, either
trust your luck or try the next method. For all three of the previous
scenarios, seller's will often take bids on items over a certain price,
in Dallas the cut-off is generally $100, occasionally it will be $50,
and very rarely they don't have a limit. If you see an item for $250
that you'd be willing to pay more than half but don't want to risk
someone else getting to it before you do, you bid $130, and if no one
buys it before the final reduction, they call you and you come and pick
it up. When you get called depends on the sale, you have to ask. You
generally have to be prepared to go and pick it up on fairly short
notice, they won't let you do it after the sale is over. A cellular
phone comes in very handy here. The next opportunity to buy merchandise
comes when the sale is near closing. If they have any worthwhile
merchandise, some sellers will start taking offers. The problem is
finding a sale where they still have anything you want near the end, and
which will still take offers. Some companies that run estate sales will
just pack up everything that doesn't sell, and haul it to their next
estate sale. These tend to be the ones that have the most good
merchandise near the end, since they tend to be the ones that price
stuff too high to start with. Once you identify these companies, avoid
their sales like the plague.
One key element is where the estate sale is held. There are certain
areas of Dallas where the prices always go too high, so I don't bother
going to sales held there. You want to concentrate on areas with large
concentrations of retired middle class to upper middle class
individuals, people who have nice things but whose neighbors aren't
going to be attending the sale by the thousands. Avoid very wealthy
neighborhoods, the prices escalate in relationship to the property
values of the house where the sale is being held. Since you aren't
buying the house, there's no point in paying a premium for where your
merchandise came from. Avoid very poor neighborhoods, you don't tend to
find valuable merchandise where people don't have any money, and have
never had any money.
Richard Ward
Kris Baker
Richard Ward wrote in message <3D7632FF...@earthlink.net>...
>One key element is where the estate sale is held. There are certain
>areas of Dallas where the prices always go too high, so I don't bother
>going to sales held there. You want to concentrate on areas with large
>concentrations of retired middle class to upper middle class
>individuals, people who have nice things but whose neighbors aren't
>going to be attending the sale by the thousands. Avoid very wealthy
>neighborhoods, the prices escalate in relationship to the property
>values of the house where the sale is being held. Since you aren't
>buying the house, there's no point in paying a premium for where your
>merchandise came from. Avoid very poor neighborhoods, you don't tend to
>find valuable merchandise where people don't have any money, and have
>never had any money.
>
>Richard Ward
My favorite types of neighborhoods are older ones, in the middle
class areas, where people tend to have lived in their homes for
a long time. Some of these are now poor neighborhoods, but if
you catch these areas just before gentrification moves in, you can
find some nice items being sold by the elderly who are moving out.
I also like the "1950s modern" subdivisions, those which have
been well-maintained and which haven't deteriorated. You'll
mostly find long-term residents there, also.
Here, the NEW neighborhoods (no matter if they're lower, middle
or upper class) have squat for sale. I always find it odd that people
in the million-dollar homes are selling worse crap than those in
the lower neighborhoods.....makes you wonder if they need
donations.
There are very few real estate sales in Utah, and some piss-poor
auctioneers that anyone with good sense avoids.
Kris
David Arenson
"Estate sale treasure" = Bought at Goodwill
eBay listings are often about as honest as real estate ads.
David
Richard Ward
>
<snip>
> An estate sale is simply an indoor yard sale.
>
One major difference. At a yard sell people sell the stuff they bought
and no longer want or need. At an estate sale, people's heirs sell the
stuff they never bought themselves. While it doesn't help your chances
of getting a good deal, it does greatly reduce your chances of the sale
consisting entirely of old children's clothes and broken toys. I've
never run across fine china in a garage sale, it's a common item in
estate sales, where the grown children generally have their own china,
and have no desire to have their parents china.
They do serve one other purpose, without estate sales flea market
sellers would have to replace the single most common lie they tell,
i.e., "I don't know anything about it, but I know it's old because it
came out of the estate of an 80 year old woman." (Who apparently never
bought anything after the age of three.)
Richard Ward
Richard Ward
>
<snip>
> Thanks much! Everyone has been a great help. Uh, what about flea markets???
>
> Scarlett (sorta new at this but making enough to start claiming it as
> income...)
Find the right flea markets, and either go when they first open or go
before they open, depending on the market. The hard part is finding the
good flea markets, nothing but trial and error will work for that. If
you find one flea market, and find a dealer you like, ask them where
else they sell. Some will run a circuit of flea markets that are open
on different days of the week. Others run a circuit of big flea markets
that are each open on a different day each month. If they have a snack
bar, after your through bidding, sit down, grab a coke or a cup of
coffee, and listen to the conversations around you.
There are publications out there that list flea markets, most are either
paid advertisements or horribly out of date. They can provide some
useful information, but ignore what they say about a particular flea
market, and just use them as a list of addresses and general days of
operation.
Richard Ward
bp
> Here, the NEW neighborhoods (no matter if they're lower, middle
> or upper class) have squat for sale. I always find it odd that people
> in the million-dollar homes are selling worse crap than those in
> the lower neighborhoods.....makes you wonder if they need
> donations.
It takes a while for good stuff to accumulate in the basement. I find that
the best garage sales happen when the seller has lived in the same house for
decades.
The people who live in that new neighbourhood threw out all the vogue
picture records when they moved out of the old house.
The one major exception I've seen was in a newly-built gated retirement
community. They were having a neighbourhood-wide garage sale and there was
great stuff in every driveway -- I guess they were all getting rid of the
stuff after moving instead of before.
Richard Ward
<snip>
> The one major exception I've seen was in a newly-built gated retirement
> community. They were having a neighbourhood-wide garage sale and there was
> great stuff in every driveway -- I guess they were all getting rid of the
> stuff after moving instead of before.
I've never seen a garage sale in a retirement community, but I've bought
a lot of stuff from people out of retirement communities who were
selling in other venues. Lots of people seem to ask their kids what
they want when they die, and get rid of the rest. At first it seems
ridiculous that the kids wouldn't want some of this stuff, but then when
you think about it by this time most of them are grown and have
accumulated their own pile of stuff. The chipped tea set they were
allowed to play with as a child may have far more sentimental value to
them than the china or crystal that the family only ate off of once a
year.
Richard Ward
AngrieWoman
"Kris Baker" <kris....@prodigyy.net> wrote in message news:poqd9.1120
> Here, the NEW neighborhoods (no matter if they're lower, middle
> or upper class) have squat for sale.
Same here in Indiana. (Ask your wife!) I prefer to drive to the "Old
Northeast" part of town rather than the 500k and up areas.
I never got lucky at an estate sale. I do better at auctions.
Angie
Kris Baker
AngrieWoman wrote in message ...
>
>"Kris Baker" <kris....@prodigyy.net> wrote in message news:poqd9.1120
>
>> Here, the NEW neighborhoods (no matter if they're lower, middle
>> or upper class) have squat for sale.
>
>Same here in Indiana. (Ask your wife!) I prefer to drive to the "Old
>Northeast" part of town rather than the 500k and up areas.
THAT'S where she's getting those guns, eh?
>I never got lucky at an estate sale. I do better at auctions.
>
>Angie
Want to change that quickly? Come to a Utah auction.
Horrid, horrid, horrid.
Kris