Estate sales can be a great place to find valuable items or wonderful bargains. However, they can also be a complete waste of time. Which one of these you will experience depends on a few different factors including you. Here are the key things to remember when you want to start going to estate sales.
- One time sales are usually the best. Somebody just holding the one sale to settle an estate should be on the top of your list because they are looking to just sell the items and move on. Thus, they are much more inclined to making deals.
- Do not chase sales that are too far from you. The closer the better.
- Look for sales in your area that contain the area of items you want the most. For example, I prefer the ones with lots of furniture and tools.
- If you want to go to estate sales regularly pick the ones that are the most willing to treat you good after many sales. Some will even email you if you are a regular and a new sale pops up.
- Avoid sales where the one in charge is too hard to deal with each time and does not care whether you return or not. An example of this is spending time digging through a lot of stuff with no prices and then getting a high price when you go to check out. Most of the time, the one giving the price doesn’t know anything about the item much less saw it before you found it! Therefore, you are doing their job and may not even buy it unless you want to pay not that far from retail it, which shows no appreciation at all for your effort. Furthermore, they could get upset if you ask for a lower price.
- Go where you can have the most fun and get the best deals most of the time. If you are in a house that makes you uncomfortable and the people in charge are not friendly, just leave. I was in a very small house one time alone with three sale workers and it was miserable. They were all sitting on the chairs and sofa and talking amongst themselves while I was in the garage dealing with no prices and no lights. When I did bring an item in for a price they all wanted to jump in at once! You are not going to win in that situation because they will back each other up whether they are right or not. The only thing you can do is to set the item down and leave their sales’ for good.
- The best estate sales are usually the kind where they say “grab a box and fill it up”! This is also where you will probably find the most fellow customers because these are the most fun. you can easily spend hours at these.