Monday, March 28, 2016

Selling a Hoard


  For the second time this year we are selling personal property that belonged to a hoarder, these are always difficult to judge and execute and expectations on both mine and the families side are rarely met.  The family is often distraught with the thought of getting rid of a loved ones most prized possessions, and the thought of what is under all the stuff.   I rarely use the word hoarder due to its negative connotation, but by any name it is what it is.  
 

    Often I find one spouse outlived the other and stayed in the same home, as the days went on the house felt emptier and they began filling it with things that provided momentary happiness.  Often with these you will find multiple new in box items they bought and put in the home, never taking out of the box.   Another common one is childhood poverty, my grandparents were the children of sharecroppers in rural Arkansan.  My grandmother and her family often ate one meal a day at the end of winter, because there was not enough food to last all winter.  When I was a child she and my grandfather had 2 large chest freezers full, 1 upright freezer full and 2 refrigerators completely full, plus store bought and home canned food. 


We here at Have Gavel will Travel conduct these types of sales in one of two ways or often a combinations of both.

Bedroom on the third floor
1.  Dig it out and sell it by the room, this is the quick but often painful way to sell.  If there is hundreds of items of little or no value it is often the only way to sell.  Often times there is not enough value in the home to justify the labor to remove and stage the items inside.  We will do a search through the rooms looking for treasures and sell the balance on sale day.   There are buyers who love to buy this kind of volume and will aggressively bid, these types of sales typically do not draw a casual buyer.




2.  Drag it all out in boxes and sell like a farm sale, this one is super labor intensive, but if the value is there it can be justifiable.  The labor involved escalates quickly and you have to know when to say good enough.  Even if we moved the home out, we typically leave shelves and cabinets full.  There will be buyers who like to buy this volume also.  We often spend days or weeks looking through and boxing items, trying to identify the treasures from the stuff.


So as we look to put another packed house sale on the books, I hope this provides some insight to how we sell these packed houses.  If you find yourself with a hoard to sell in the St Louis area feel free to contact us.  Walt


Walter Holt
Owner Operator Have Gavel Will Travel
havegavelwilltravel.net
(314) 517-4013

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