This month I’ve got a couple of Terra Linda houses coming on the market. Both are trustee sales where the owner passed away and the sellers were left with a lifetime worth of personal property. How are we handling all the stuff?
Shortly before the SIP on one property we had three garage sales. It was two consecutive weekends, and I helped out with photos for Craigslist and Nextdoor postings. I also put a posting in the Marin Independent Journal the first weekend, just to cover all our bases. I used my directional real estate street signs, covering them with “Garage Sale, 9am-2pm,” printouts and the address.
My seller had interviewed several estate sale people and decided he wanted to do the garage sales on his own because of the commission that estate sale people charge. There are a few downsides to estate sales (1) you don’t set the prices and (2) you pay the commission. In the end you get enough money to pay for the dump fees for everything that is left over, and sometimes there is a little change left in your pocket. The upside to an estate sale is that they handle everything. You give them the house for a weekend and magically everything disappears. There’s a lot to be said for that approach.
It can be nice to use donation services like the Goodwill, and Salvation Army was actually scheduling pickups up until the SIP. This is a great approach, but keep in mind the Salvation Army doesn’t take everything when they do start doing pickups again. I dropped off my Odyssey full of belongings at Salvation Army yesterday.
One day I saw a posting on Nextdoor from a woman looking for used men’s shoes. I was going to give her one of my old but still useful pairs and decided to buy her a new pair instead. It turns out she lives in Terra Linda and coordinates donations to the fire victims in Paradise. They are suffering up there with homelessness and job losses. She’s a very good resource for donations and I’m grateful she’s able to find new homes for things that otherwise might get trashed.
I used to do Craigslist ‘FREE’ ads and have people come through homes to take what they wanted. However in the COVID era we don’t want the general public walking through private homes. This has also killed the estate sale business, although apparently they are still making appointments to show people homes one at a time. Now instead of having people come though homes we put up the Craigslist and Nextdoor ‘FREE’ ads and put belongings in driveways where they vanish.
When all else fails and you’ve still got personal belongings you can have a dumpster delivered and fill it up if you like to do things yourself. There are also hauling companies like 1-800-GOT-JUNK and a good friend of mine Dave Sanders who runs www.NextDayCleanup.com. I met Dave a few years back while clearing out a house through a Craigslist ‘Free’ ad and he models his business after GOT JUNK.
In summation the best ways to go are estate and/or garage sales, Nextdoor and Craigslist, dumpsters and junkers.