Yes, you can host an estate sale on your own if you have enough time, energy and help. An experienced estate sale company may take a week to prepare and host the sale. An inexperienced person will need more time. Plan for the preparation and sale to be completed in 4-6 weeks.
Below is a brief outline of steps to take for hosting your own sale.
1. Choose Your Sale Items and Organize Them
Determine what you want to sell and begin organizing it, putting similar things together. An attractive display will improve sales. You will always want to remove any items that are not for sale from the house or put them behind a locked door. Customers often get frustrated when they see a house full of items that are not for sale.
2. Secure Shelving and Tables
If table and countertops are not enough, rent or buy additional shelves and tables so that your inventory can be exhibited in an appealing way. New Life Estate Sales sets up each sale as a boutique store front in your home.
3. Price Your Items
Price each of your items. Bulk pricing can be used to decrease the workload but also has risks of mispricing if not done carefully. Generally items at an estate sale are priced less than reselling sites such as Ebay or Mercari. Do research online to analyze what each item should sell for.
4. Get the Right Permits
Oftentimes neighborhoods or cities will have specific rules on having an estate sale. They may limit the days you can have them or have restrictions on the number of signs you are allowed per sale. You will want to figure out what permits are needed, County, City, HOA, and purchase them.
5. Pick an Advertising Method
Decide how to advertise the sale: online, facebook, signs, etc. This is incredibly important because no matter how much you prepare for an estate sale, if you have no traffic to your estate sale then it will do poorly. You need hundreds of customers for a sale to do well.
6. Find Helpers
Get lots of help for the sale days. One person needs to be checking customers out. Another person needs to be rounding throughout the home, watching for shoplifters and answering questions. If the home is large, more help will be needed.
7. Determine Accepted Payment Methods
Establish what means of payment that will be accepted. Most customers do not carry much cash and customers primarily rely on credit and debit cards. You will sell much less if you are unable to take credit cards. You may also take apps such as Venmo and Cash app.
8. Modify Pricing
Modify pricing as the sale progresses, such as “Day 2, 30% off”, etc. You always want to lower the price on each day of the sale to ensure you liquidate as much of your possessions as possible. The price percentage you drop the price each day is generally dependent on how well the sale is doing. If it is doing incredibly well you may drop far less than a sale that is not performing as needed.
9. Decide What to Do with Unsold Items
Find a junk removal service who will dispose of unsold items. Conversely, unsold items can be donated to charity. Some stores will pick up the items, but they often do not accept everything that may be leftover.
CONCLUSION
Yes, you can host an estate sale on your own! With organization and physical help, an estate sale can be hosted by nearly anyone. We have seen sales that should have netted over $30,000 barely sell $10,000. This is generally because non-professionals just do not do it as well as professionals.. If you find the task to be more than you bargained for, call us at 615.739.4496! New Life Estate Sales is best suited to help with your sale in Middle Tennessee.
