Memories
for sale: what's a household worth?
Story
by
Marni
Jameson
It's
so true: Some things in life you just can't put a price on. Until you have
to. When it's up to you to liquidate your parents' treasure-filled home,
you need to price the priceless.
How
much for that baby grand piano Mom used to play? How much for the sideboard
that served up every Thanksgiving dinner you can remember. How much for the
porch swing Dad built?
When
selling is both unthinkable and necessary, it's nice to have outside experts.
Such
reason did not prevail last year when I cleared out my parents' home several
months after they had moved into assisted living. I did not have experts. I had
myself, my sister-in-law, one week and a learning curve that didn't curve but
shot straight up like a flagpole.
Who
else could do the job justice? I reasoned. Plus, I didn't want to give anyone a
cut of the profits, which were going straight into my parents' long-term care
fund.
But
looking back, I see the value of experts.
They
knew then what I know now, and wish I'd known. For starters, they know how
emotional, irrational and deluded those of us selling our parents' belongings
-- heck even our own stuff -- are when estimating value. But those were our
baby bibs!
MaxSold
founder Barry Gordon put it bluntly: "Things are worth what people will
pay." A four-year-old Canadian company now in the United States, MaxSold
(www.maxsold.com) clears out homes. The company sends in a team that organizes
household items in batches or 'lots,' photographs them, then uses social media
to sell them locally through online auctions.
"People
think that when they put their price on items, they have control of the price.
They don't," Gordon said. "The buying market will determine the
value." Holding out for a price can leave you holding onto the item.
I
know I turned down several offers for my parents' antique marble-topped
nightstand, which I now have parked at a family friend's house across the
country.
Clinging
has its costs, especially if you need to ship an item, move it, or heaven
forbid, put it in paid storage. (Dear readers, please, before you get a storage
locker, call me. I will talk you off the ledge.)
Gordon
cites this example. Say someone has a dining room set and would feel awful if
they sold if for anything less than $2,000. A buyer offers $800, which the
seller turns down. Then, because there's no room for it, the set goes in
storage. Three years later, at $100 a month, the seller has paid $3,600 to hang
onto it and finally sells it for $500.
Better
to yank the Band-Aid off now, even if it hurts. And it will.
Although
no two households are alike, in Gordon's experience, the contents of the
average North American home, after the family has taken out what they want to
keep and paid the liquidator, yields between $3,000 and $10,000. He's heard
other liquidation professionals say the average house yields about $5,900.
"Our
process is not designed to replace the important work," said Gordon,
referring to the sifting, sorting and saving family members must do first.
But
once the family decides what won't stay, if they're not up to selling items
themselves, they need to step aside.
"Dealing
with a family home paralyzes people," said Gordon. "It can takes the
toughest, most organized, efficient people and slow them to an absolute
standstill."
His
advice: "Don't work yourself into a frenzy trying to control things you
can't. What you can control is how much of your life you put into the
process." Here's what else you can control:
- Your options. When clearing out a home,
many families, including mine, hold an estate sale, where individual items
are tagged and the public is invited on a particular day. The sale can -
and did -- create a chaotic environment, which is hard to control,
especially if a lot of people show up. Others work with a bulk buyer, who
pays one price to take everything away. What you lose in profit you gain
in convenience. A liquidator, like MaxSold, is a hybrid. It batches and
auctions off goods from the house and reports all sales to the client.
- The location. More than 99 percent of
household belongings sell nearby, said Gordon, whose company uses 35
social media avenues to promote auctions locally.
- Timing. How long families take to clear a
home ranges widely and is highly personal. "I've seen clients go
through the process in light speed, burning through the sorting in a day,
and others take several years, and still not make much progress,"
said Gordon. "A good healthy time frame is probably a couple of
weeks."
- Package deals. Bundling items is a tactic I
wish I'd done more. Although I put items for the estate sale together -
mom's two dozen dried flower arrangements, her 40-some flowerpots - I
tagged each item rather than said $50 for all. You'll move more
merchandise faster, and more efficiently, if you make groups: all
figurines, all items in the cleaning closet, all pots and pans.
"Buyers can't pick and choose," Gordon said. "They buy the
lot."
- Your reserves. In an auction, a reserve is a
price below which a seller will not sell. "We don't allow that,"
said Gordon. "We ask sellers if they are done with the items. If they
are, we sell." It's a trap to think that having a reserve ensures you
get the price you want. Only place one if you're prepared to keep the
item.
- Your goal. If your goal is to clear the
house, accept that you may not get top dollar, but that you will get what
the market is paying. "Clients need to release themselves to the
competitive market," Gordon said.
*****
Syndicated columnist and
speaker Marni Jameson is the author of "House of Havoc" and "The
House Always Wins" (Da Capo Press). Contact her through www.marnijameson.com.
