If you need to jettison an entire household of belongings, an estate sale can provide a one-shot solution. Most events take place over two or three days, when an estate sale company (or sometimes, a family member) holds a jumbo tag sale or online auction during which furniture, art, dishes, clothing, and even unopened bottles of Pepsi are game.

These liquidators take a big cut of sales proceeds—30 to 50 percent is typical—so don’t expect an estate sale to generate considerable money for you. Instead, the goals for most families are to get rid of unwanted possessions en masse and quickly, without resorting to a junk hauler-landfill combo.

Here’s what to expect and how to find good help.

Finding the Right Estate Sale Company

Most estate-sale companies come in before the event to tag and price items. The best outfits employ staffers with appraisal skills to figure out what things are worth and how to price them. Generally speaking, a home with $3,000 or more in furnishings, clothing, and other household goods merits an estate sale.

Here at Checkbook.org, you’ll find reviews of estate-sale businesses. Also seek recommendations from professionals who often deal with death and downsizing: realtors, estate attorneys, and assisted-living facilities. And ask for referrals from friends, neighbors, and community organizations that serve older adults.

You’ll get paid only for stuff that gets sold, so you want a company that will widely advertise your sale to bring in lots of buyers. So check out how companies you’re considering advertise sales on sites such as EstateSales.org, EstateSales.net, and Facebook Marketplace. Do their ads contain concise, catchy verbiage and quality photos?

Though no certification exists for estate liquidators, the industry has two membership organizations: the American Society of Estate Liquidators (ASEL) and National Association of Estate Liquidators. Although some good companies don’t bother joining such groups, membership might at least confirm that an outfit sees its work as a profession, not a side business.

Also find out how long a given company has been in business, and how frequently it hosts sales. A long-running, busy estate-sale company is less likely to rip you off than a new business or an inexperienced individual.

If you’ve got time, drop by a sale or two run by any company you are considering to see if staffers are polite and the event is well-organized. If you’re impressed, schedule an in-person meeting where staffers look over what you’ve got. But before that meeting, remove anything you want to keep so the session focuses on selling stuff, not sorting. Then ask them:

• Do I have enough stuff for an estate sale?
• What services do you provide?
• Do you charge a flat fee, collect a percentage of sales, or work on a sliding scale? What fees will I pay?
• How long have you been in business?
• How many sales have you conducted? How many in the past three months?
• Are there additional charges for you to dispose of anything left over after the sale, whether donating it to charity, holding an additional estate sale, or taking it to the dump, and what do you do with it?
• How and where will you advertise my sale?
• How many people will see your ads?
• How many people usually attend your sales?
• Is your company insured?
• How do you handle crowd control and security?
• Can you provide references of the three families you worked with most recently?
• When will I get paid?
• Do you clean out and clean up the house after the sale? (Most companies do this, but get promises in writing.)
• Do you accept credit cards during the sale? If so, is that extra? Because credit card companies take a three-to-five-percent bite out of sales, many estate-sale businesses operate on a cash-or-checks-only basis, although they’re increasingly accepting Venmo, Zelle, etc.
• Do you also run a consignment shop? (This can be a red flag. Some shop owners intentionally do lousy jobs at estate sales so they can sell the most valuable items back at their stores and keep all the proceeds.)

Ask each company for a written proposal indicating how it calculates its fees and an estimate for how much you’ll earn from the sale.

Most estate liquidators evaluate potential sales by considering both how much work it’ll be and what kind of return they’ll get. This means they may operate on a sliding percentage-rate scale based on the sale’s proceeds. A company that charges a 40 percent commission for smaller estates ($3,000 to $5,000) might charge only 30 percent for a large one.

Minimum sale amounts and fees are also common, typically ranging from $500 to $3,000. Some companies charge extra for clearing out the property post-sale; others include that in their fees.

Once you’ve chosen a company, get a written contract that includes all the details from the points and questions discussed above. Then pick a date. Most sales begin on Thursday or Friday and continue through Saturday or Sunday.

How Estate Sales Work

Before the event, estate sale staff will sort, appraise, photograph, and price items, eventually arranging everything by room, type, or on tables or racks they provide. The pros may deem some items unworthy to sell, so ask what happens to them and unsold items after the sale. Does the percentage or fee the company charges cover removal of unsold items, to charity, another estate sale (a common practice), or a landfill?

If you haven’t already done so, remove items you don’t want to sell before you sign a contract; many agreements stipulate that once ratified, everything that’s in the house is up for sale. And make sure to take out financial papers, family photos, and other items you don’t want strangers handling.

To maximize profits, skilled estate-sale companies employ or call in expert appraisers to value higher-ticket items, sometimes sending art or rare antiques to auctions if they think they will net more cash. If you have valuable collectibles or antiques, get in writing how the company plans to sell them.

Don’t throw out anything before the estate-sale company looks through it. You will be dumbfounded by what sells—worn-out clothing, broken toys, beat-up pots.

Manage your profit expectations. Most items won’t sell for anything close to the prices you or your relatives paid even decades ago. The stuff your parents or grandparents treasured—fine china, those creepy little Hummel figurines—may no longer be popular or valuable. But some items have held or increased their value—for example, midcentury modern furniture and accessories, gold jewelry, and some gemstones.

If the estate includes valuable jewelry or stylish vintage dresses, liquidators will likely bring in a locking glass case and clothing racks. Good companies will merchandise items to make the home look appealing, but if the space was crammed and dusty to begin with, don’t expect an HGTV-like makeover.

A few weeks before the sale, the estate-sale company should start promoting it via websites, its own email lists, and social media. On sale days, the company should erect signs directing people to the sale—random foot traffic often boosts profits.

During the sale, steer clear of the house. Because most estate sales occur after death or illness, it might be hard to separate your feelings from the mountains of stuff you need to disperse.

Especially on the first day of the estate sale event, buyers often queue up early in the morning; some liquidation companies hand out numbers to manage volume.

Liquidators start out pricing items at close to what they think they’re worth (but generally less than what they go for on eBay or Facebook Marketplace). Then, as the weekend (or day) progresses, estate sellers start slashing prices. For example, for a Friday-to-Sunday event many companies reduce prices by 25 percent Saturday morning, 50 percent Saturday afternoon, and 75 percent Sunday.

After the sale, if you’ve hired a company to completely empty the property, you should return to a broom-clean house. Again: Many companies include this service in their cut, but get in writing a detailed description of the arrangement you want.

Staffers will dispose of unsold items, by donating them, trashing them, or selling them via another estate sale. Have your contract specify that the company will provide an itemized list of donated or unsold goods for your tax return.

Most companies disburse funds within two to three weeks after the sale. Specify a deadline for payment in your written contract.

Auctions, Online Estate Sales, Buyouts, and Other Options

Traditional, in-person sales aren’t your only option for liquidating a house’s worth of possessions. You can hire a company to hawk your stuff online or via auction or just accept a lump-sum payout. Here are estate-sale alternatives:

DIY. You can hold your own estate sale. If you host your own sale, you’ll probably pull in less revenue; but since you keep all the proceeds, you might net more money. But because most sales happen during big life transitions, it can be upsetting to sell your possessions or those of a loved one.

If you choose to DIY, research prices at other estate sales, on Facebook Marketplace, and eBay. Advertise your sale on neighborhood Listservs, EstateSales.org, EstateSales.net, and social media.

Get a buyout. If time is too short to conduct an estate sale, go for a buyout and sell everything to an estate-sale operator that pays you an agreed-upon price for everything and then hauls it all away and sells it later. The downside: You won’t make as much money as you would with an estate sale.

Hire a junk hauler. Don’t do this unless several estate-sale companies recommend it; most families are better off holding estate sales. Click here for more advice on this option.

Take it online. Many estate-sale companies now offer online auctions instead of, or in addition to, onsite sales. Similar to eBay auctions, these sales accept online bidding and often require local pickup of goods—although some will ship items for an extra fee. The idea? More eyeballs see your stuff when it’s on the internet.

Live auctions. Some estate-sale companies will send a few items from your sale to auction; for example, a painting by a noted artist likely to fetch top dollar. If the home is in a rural area unlikely to receive foot traffic at an estate sale, an in-person estate auction is also a good option.

Contract terms and fee structures of the various live-auction operators are similar to onsite estate sales. A sliding scale is most common, wherein the estate-sale company takes incrementally lower percentages as the overall sale amount increases. 

For more advice and help, check out our articles on how to get rid of your unwanted stuff and clothing resale options.