Frequently Asked Questions

Updated 08/01/2024: The simple answer is almost nothing. We ask that you remove any family photos, personal papers, and anything the Estate or family wants to keep and leave everything else where it is. If the family doesn't want the personal papers or photos, leave them there.  You don't need to haul off anything. You don't need to donate anything. You can sit back and let us handle it all. You will be surprised at WHAT people buy. We sell everything from vehicles, firearms, jewelry, household items, clothing, spices in the kitchen cupboard and everything in between. If we don't' think an item will sell by itself, we make "box lots" or mystery boxes of random items and people love to bid on them to treasure hunt. It's better to sell an item as part of a box lot then worry about having to haul it off or pay to take it to the dump. People repurpose and reuse so many different things that we usually have very little left after an auction ends, just by making box lots.  

Updated 08/01/24: Great Question! First, we setup a time to meet you and look at the Estate. There is no charge for us to come out and take a look. If you like us and we think we can be a benefit to your Estate, we will agree to take on the job of liquidating the estate and we would then email you a digital contract to sign.  Once the contract has been signed, we set you up in our computer system as a consignor. After this is done, we will usually get a key from you and place a realtor type lockbox on a door.  Then we would come in and organize things and take photographs of the items where they sit.  We put number stickers on the items and upload them to our cloud-based auction site based on the room they are in at the estate. Once everything is cataloged, we then would edit the photos and upload them to the internet auction site with a start date and time agreed on between us and the estate rep. The Estate rep would review the photos and auction items to ensure everything is good to go and then we would start the auction process. We upload the items and usually try to have them online for between one week and two weeks.  We would then advertise the auction on Skagit Breaking, Our Social Media pages.  On Friday night at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. local time the auction goes into "Live" mode. This is when you will see the most bidding activity as bidders compete in real time to "win" the auction items. Starting at lot 1, each item closes 15 seconds apart, one by one until all items have been sold. We use a "soft close" auction style, so anything that gets a bid in the last two minutes, extends that item by two minutes until all bids are received. Once all items have been "sold" at auction and the auction ends, we immediately download the auction from the cloud-based system, and process invoices. We immediately bill each bidder's credit card and email them a copy of their invoice with information to schedule a pickup time the following day between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. so they buyer can come and pickup their items. We have our crew on site on pickup day to assist each buyer with picking up their items. We ship worldwide, so we take any items that need to be shipped, and we handle all the shipping and charge the buyers directly for shipping costs.  Once pickup is finished, it is up to each individual estate to decide what they want us to do next. We either haul off and donate any remaining items or we leave them for the estate if the estate wants them left. We then would haul any trash to the dump. We try to recycle and donate everything we can that isn't useable or sellable. After the sale, the Estate Rep is provided with a detailed inventory list of every item that sold, how much it sold for and how much commission was paid. The Estate rep will receive a second list of unsold items that were left over. Usually within 2 weeks of the auction end a check is sent out to the estate rep for the proceeds of the auction.   

UPDATED 08/01/2024: Yes. For everyone's protection, we have you sign a contract. We use lawdepot.com to have you electronically sign a contract. We're a small business and our word means more than any contract will, but to protect you and I, we have you sign one. We give you the option to cancel the contract and pay nothing if we haven't started photographing. If we have started photographing, you only pay the auction hosting fee if you should change your mind. 

FULL ESTATE SERVICES: As of 08/01/24, Our basic Full Estate Liquidation Services cost a flat $2,500 auction hosting fee PER AUCTION and 35% commission of overall auction sales. This hosting fee includes labor for photographing the items, uploading and editing the photos as well as labor for auction hosting, auction billing, shipping and labor for pickup day. The Estate Pays any dump fees associated with trash from the estate. The current rate at the Skagit County Transfer station is $108.00 per tons with a $20.00 minimum plus labor associated with the haul off. The labor is billed at $25/hr for a minimum of 2-hours and 2-people ($100 min).    **This basic $2500 auction hosting fee is subject to change depending on the Estate size, contents of the estate and the quality of the estate items.  These costs are not out of pocket but come off of the final invoice at the end of the auction sale.  

 CONSIGNMENT INFORMATION: Updated on 08/01/24.  We do consign items and sell them from our home, but ultimately, they need to be worth the time to photograph, list and sell.  What we charge varies on the consigned items and how they come to us. If you deliver the items to us. There is a basic Auction hosting fee of $250.00 per consignor, per auction, plus we charge commission of 35% of all online sales. The $250.00 covers photographing of up to 100 items ($2.50 per item if you bring us 100 items). These items all start at $1.00 and have no minimums and no reserves. If you place a minimum or reserve on any of the consigned items, there is a "Buy Back Fee" of $5.00 per lot that has a reserve and 35% commission of what the item would have sold for. Vehicles and Large equipment are charged at 10% commission plus the fee. 

 Do you pick items up and sell them? The answer is YES, but there are costs associated with doing this. We frequently get asked if we can pick up and empty out a storage unit or home of items and sell them. If you are looking to sell your items at auction and want us to load, move and transport them to our place and then unload, photograph and store them until auction time, we can do this, but we charge extra for it due to the extra labor it creates along with fuel, storage, etc. There is a minimum $1000 Fee to move items from a home or storage unit to our place. We then charge $250 per consignor, per auction for the 1st 100 items or lots plus 35% commission and $2.50 per lot after that plus 35% commission on overall sales. The consignor buy back fees listed above also apply to anything with a reserve price.  This can be costly, so as a seller looking to do this, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? If you would prefer the items hauled off and disposed of at our discretion, referred to as a "trash out" (our most popular option) there is a one-time minimum $2000 fee and we dispose of or otherwise donate, sell or get rid of the items at our discretion. There are no other additional fees, unless otherwise noted due to the size or amount of items that need to be removed.  Storage lockers full of stuff are listed for sale online daily through various websites (bid13, Storage Treasures, etc.)  and sell for anywhere from a $1.00 for a whole unit to several thousand dollars. Our fees are for the work it takes to empty them, and costs associated with doing so and getting rid of the items. 

No, we regularly work with estate reps who are out of state or that don't want to be involved in the process.  We also know that losing a family member or friend is very emotional and difficult and we will handle the entire process. If you want to be there, you are welcome to do so, but we find that it can be emotionally challenging for people to watch as their loved one's items are sold off. We don't have the emotional or sentimental connection to the items, and while we are sensitive to the needs of each individual estate, our goal is to sell the items for as much as we can and empty the property of the contents so the estate can move forward with the next plans for the property.   

No, we will liquidate the personal property of the estate and haul off the trash as requested by the Estate at the current prices listed above. We leave it ready for a deep cleaning but we do not do a deep cleaning at the end. 

We don't.  An item is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it, so we start everything out on our auctions at a $1.00 opening bid. We let the open market set the price on nearly everything. The key is to market it to the right audiences, so we get at least two people interested in the items and those two people will bid back and forth on it until one of them ultimately wins it. Hibid.com, the auction company we use to host our auctions, is viewed by people across the entire US and in multiple countries. We ship (a lot of auction houses don't) and therefore we have eyes on our auctions from all over the world. We've shipped everything from a Mustang Convertible to Michigan and thousands of packages across the world. We've even been surprised on how much some items have sold for! 

You can put reserve price on items, but it is discouraged. The point of an auction is to liquidate items. People don't attend auctions to pay retail prices, they attend them to "get a good deal." If you plan to put a reserve price on something, try to sell it outright first. We charge the Estate a Buy-Back fee ($5.00 minimum, plus the amount of commission the item would have made, had it sold for the price it reached at auction.) Example. You have a kitchen table and you want a minimum of $500.00 on it. At auction, the bids get up to $150.00 but doesn't sell because you have a reserve price on it of $500.00. We would still charge you a $5.00 "Buy back fee" plus 35% buy-back on the commission amount of $150.00 that it would have sold for had you not put a reserve price on it. 

Several "used" items don't sell well. They might actually surprise you and not be what you expected. In our experience, items that don't sell very well include, beds with any sort of flaws/stains, floral print couches, collector's plates such as bradford exchange, etc, most clear glassware and most any LARGE solid wood/oak furniture pieces (even if they cost $1,000's of dollars when they were new). A lot of families are living in small apartments and tiny homes and don't have room for the large furniture pieces. A lot of mixed or blended families also don't sit down for formal dining and China Hutches, Large tables, buffets and similar items are a hard sell and usually don't sell for more than a couple dollars. The benefit of selling them for a couple dollars at auction to someone who is going to repurpose them is you don't have to move the items. Many charities are no longer accepting large furniture items either. 

Yes, we are both licensed and insured. 

Once we sign a contract with an Estate Rep, everything needs to be sold through the auction process. When we agree to take on an Estate, there is a lot of work involved. We have employees to pay and we base our agreement on the items we have seen included in the estate and what we believe we can sell those items for and what we would make in commission off of those items. If we allowed estate reps to remove items, especially the "good" items and sell them privately, we would not only be losing money but those items might be the entire reason we agreed to do the estate in the first place, because we agreed to sell the entire contents of the estate, including the good and the bad. You are welcome to give the person interested in the item the auction link and have them bid on the item. 

This is a very common question. Time and time again, we've heard "I had someone (antique dealer, etc) come in and look at the Estate and they only agreed to buy a few things but wouldn't do an entire estate sale. STOP!!! They cherry picked your good items and left you to find someone else to deal with the rest. If they aren't willing to deal with the entire estate, why give them first dibs at the good stuff? Many times, we will decline an estate sale if it has been cherry picked of the good stuff. Part of dealing with entire estates is there needs to be enough Good stuff to offset the bad stuff. If it has been cherry picked already, there might not be enough stuff left to make it worth it for an estate company such as ours. Ask what they would be willing to pay outright, take their name and number and base your minimums or reserves off of those prices and see what happens at auction. You can always send them a link to the auction and if they were serious about buying the items, they will bid on them. Otherwise, you might be surprised what those cherry picked items can bring in at auction.