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Someone said companies can come and buy the. We haven't the energy to go through them.

You can have the storage units auctioned off. But I'd hire an estate sale company if it were me, and let THEM do all the sorting and pricing. There is no way estate sale companies only sell Monets or valuables of great amounts!! Trust me on that. They may take as much as 50% of the profits, but so what? Whatever is leftover is bought out by a clean-out company and hauled off. You have to do nothing but collect the check.

Go to Estatesales.net and find a local company with good reviews in Philly, and call them for guidance.

Good luck.
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Reply to lealonnie1
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Not long ago I read a story in the news about a person who purchased an ottoman at an estate sale for the family's elder who went into a facility. When she got it home she discovered $40,000 stuffed inside it. She did the right thing and returned it to the sellers who said they were in need of the money to help pay for his care. Just saying I agree that if at all possible you should consider going through it at your own pace.

When my inlaws went into facilities and lost their home to foreclosure I went through all their stuff. My SFIL had some nice and interesting vintage items and some antiques. After having it on craigslist for a while (there was no FB Marketplace or Nextdoor.com back then) and getting worn down from selling things one by one, I decided to sell it in bulk. I took pictures of some of the most interesting items and then a picture of the mountain of all of it in my garage and said Best Offer for everything. It sold right away and I didn't have to price anything or fix or clean anything.
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Reply to Geaton777
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When my hubby died and I needed to move closer to family, I interviewed 2 Estate Sales folks. The first one said my Hubby's tools wouldn't sell. The second one had a retired machinist on board. We went with them, because there were a lot of expensive tools They advertised the tools, and there were 40 men waiting in line when the sale started,. There were not many household things to sell. They collected $22,000. and I got $17,000. They left the house clean, they even swept and mopped the floor. This was 2 years ago.

On the other hand, my Son-in-Law's parents were hoarders, and no one wanted to touch the place, One of their storage units, they had 2, had nothing but empty boxes in it. Some rooms were so full of trash you couldn't walk into them. However, as they were cleaning the rooms out, they found many things of value. This week they are finally getting all the stuff out of the house so they can sell it. There were diamond rings, and a lot of brand new unboxed stuff they got from places like QVC that they never unboxed,

The bank told me about one place where people hide money is in prescription medicine bottles, they roll up money and stick it in the empty container.

I recommend you go with what you see, Every situation is different.
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Reply to MaryKathleen
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JanPeck123 4 hours ago
The tools are always wanted at estate sales. The first guy didn't know what he was talking about. We even had people buy my Dad's coffee cans of mixed bolts, nuts, & screws.
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I would go thru the stuff because you never know if money has been hidden. Coin collections can be worth a lot.
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Reply to JoAnn29
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Unless you have good reason to believe there is cash stashed away or hidden treasures that would sell for a lot of money(that the estate needs), I would press the easy button. As the TV commercial says, having that burden lifted is priceless.
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Reply to MidwestOT
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A company that does "Estate Sales" will handle everything. The do charge a hefty portion though for the work that goes into organizing, advertising and running the sale.
I strongly suggest that someone, a family member go through each unit looking for things that were put away for "safe keeping" Money, old family documents, and the occasional real treasure.
If you take each unit 1 by 1 the task is not so daunting.

Honestly if you do not care about any of the "stuff" and want nothing to do with it most storage unit places do auction off "abandoned" units. You would get nothing but you would not be paying on them any longer either.
This is not something that I would suggest just because you do not know what might be hidden away.

But to answer the basic question.. "can you sell at any price". If this is an Estate and the owners are dead and all debts have been paid that need to be paid off then you can sell at any price.
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Reply to Grandma1954
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bigsispjt, I remember back when I was empting out my parents' house. I called several estate sale companies. My parents had really nice things but unless it was a Monet painting or furniture from Buckingham Palace, the estate companies weren't interested.


So I called the Salvation Army which came to get the furniture. The glassware, paintings, misc items in prestine condition when to a hospital rummage sale. Items in great to very good condition Goodwill took. And you would be surprised how many items I placed at curb side with a note saying FREE were picked up. Now a days, one can post photos of items For Sale/Free on NextDoor.com. Best to sell for cash compared to using Zelle or any of those on-line payment apps, heard too many issues of scams.
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Reply to freqflyer
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Judas Priest - they paid rent on 3 storage units to keep this crap, and in the end it will all probably end up in a landfill. What the hell is the matter with these people?
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Daughterof1930 Oct 29, 2024
I’ve long heard when people from other countries, mainly Asian and European, visit the states, they marvel at the endless storage facilities. Many cannot fathom America’s propensity for hanging onto so much stuff, or perhaps ever even have so much stuff
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No energy for that? I can only say that elders hide money. You need to know and understand what you may stand to lose. I hear that all the time, hung by wire in back of a bookcase, even, so I don't know that I would worry re doing this so fast, but I would do it myself. I would have a 1-800-junk truck or whatever deliver a big refuse container, and I would separate out donations from throw and go through it. That's me.
But if you are the one who is executor and are handling the estate you can gather and eliminate and put the funds from that in an account however you choose best to do it.
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Reply to AlvaDeer
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olddude Oct 29, 2024
With some help, you could also try running your own estate sale. Allow people to come into the house, and have them make offers on everything. Don't bother pricing anything. Don't refuse any offer, and you can always donate/trash whatever is left over.
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I agree with others about going through everything looking for cash and other valuables. My grandmother hid her mom's wedding ring in a wall decoration and cash in her recipe box.
Estate sale companies that we contacted when we cleaned out my mom's house were looking to sell estates with high value items like coins, jewelry and guns, so that did not work out for us. We did find an online auction company called Maxsold . com which I highly recommend! At the end of the two weeks that we worked with them, everything was gone except for a desk, a wall unit and a book case. Those were easy to donate after. It was amazing how much stuff vanished during our auction and my mom received a check in the end for what was sold.
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LauraAT Nov 3, 2024
InCalifornia, do you remember what % Maxsold charged to do the sale? We need to empty my Mom's house to sell and while she wasn't a hoarder, it's still alot of stuff and not high value type items but good furniture, lots of nice housewares....
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