Hi,
I'm leaving the US in few months and I'll be out for some years. I
need to sell all my stuff including furniture, TV, computer, bed
frame, electronic devices, books, everything. However I don't have
time and energy to go through eBay or garage sale or those kind of
stuff. I need someone to come to my house and pick up everything and
give me cash. I know there are some companies or people who do that
but I can't find any. I live in Los Angeles (90034).
Will you give me some phones, addresses or URL to those services?
Thanks.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 26 May 2005 11:01 PDT

Dealers who buy entire housefuls of stuff are generally junk dealers
who offer very little money. You will get a much better deal if you
use an estate liquidator who arranges to sell your property to other
people. Here's a typical service:

"This service involves no effort on the part of the client, as we
provide a complete and experienced staff that will inventory all of
the estate's contents, price all items and then, conduct the sale.

Each item is fairly priced so that the majority of items will sell and
bring in the best possible proceeds for the client...

Our extensive advertising reaches out to our network of buyers and we
use newspapers, the web and other resources!

'We Leave Your Walls', and will be sure the house is empty and ready to sell."

http://www.callreneeestateliquidation.com/About%20Us.htm 

If this type of service interests you, I'll be glad to gather
information on estate liquidators in the Los Angeles area.

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Clarification of Question by ah2005-ga on 26 May 2005 13:31 PDT

The services you mentioned look interesting however I'm not sure if
they buy my stuff right away and give me my the money or I have to
wait for them to sell my stuff one by one when there is a buyer for
them and then send me the fees.
As far as I understood, they empty the house but put the stuff in
their inventory and conduct a sale that may sell some or none and
....and I have to wait until they sell everthing. (correct me if I'm
wrong)
What I look for is a similar service to come to my house, price the
items, pick them up and then give me the money so I don't care what
they do afterwads (and in fact "buy" them from me not "sell" them on
my behalf). If they provide such services I'd be happy to hear from
them.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 26 May 2005 13:55 PDT

ah2005-ga,

I think pinkfrued-ga has already hit upon the best solution for you,
but it may help to explain how an estate sale does and doesn't work.

An estate sale -- at least as far as I'm familiar with them -- takes
place right in your home over the course of a few days, usually the
weekend (you'll have to disappear for a while).  The service will
advertise the sale, send out email notices, etc.  They usually have no
trouble drawing a crowd.

They will also tag things in your house with a sale price, and
identify those areas or items that are off-limits to buyers, or not
for sale.

At the end of the sale, you get a chunk of the sale price, they get
the other chunk, and your house is a lot emptier than it was a few
days ago.

Note that they are not removing things from your house to sell
piecemeal.  Although this is sometimes done under special
circumstances, in my experience, this is not how most estate sales
work.

Pink is right...this is probably your best bet.  Let us know if you
would like a researcher to answer your question by identifying some
estate sale operations in your area.

And best of luck with your new everything overseas...


pafalafa-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by adiloren-ga on 26 May 2005 20:21 PDT

Post here:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/gms/

It is easy, free and attracts a lot of people. I highly suggest you give it a try.

Also, if you really want to just clear everything out, you may want to
consider giving much of it away and selling just your most valuable
stuff. You can post free giveaways here:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/zip/

-adiloren-ga

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Clarification of Question by ah2005-ga on 27 May 2005 06:22 PDT

Hello,
I agree that estate sale is the best bet (so far, since I don't know
if other options exist). However if they conduct the sale in my house,
then what happens if they can't get rid of everything? For how long
would they try it? Do they guarantee that they sell everything by a
certain date? They may offer the service of attracting the crowd but
they don't necessarily sell all the stuff. Please correct me if I'm
wrong.
By the way, if that's the only solution, I'd like to know some of them
in my area (90034). Also, just in case, I'd like to have some phone
numbers or addresses of those junk dealers who empty the house for a
small amount of money. I may go for both.
Thanks.

I hope someone can help you find the kind of service you are looking
for, but as I mentioned above, the dealers who buy entire housefuls of
belongings are usually junk dealers, and they typically offer very
small amounts of money. For example, when one of my relatives died
out-of-state, leaving a large two-story house filled with nice
furniture, appliances, artwork, and books, the best deal that could be
found was an offer of $250 to clear out the house. There must have
been a hundred thousand dollars worth of stuff in there, but $250 was
the best we could do when dealing with dealers who buy outright. We
were not able to go to the other state to handle things, so we took
the offer.

As another option, you could take all your stuff to an Ebay ISoldit
store, and they'll sell it for you & mail you a check.  There's a
location at 7160 Beverly Blvd which should be close to your zip right?
 If not, search ISoldit with Google and find the closest location.

Good luck!

Herkdrvr

Take a look at eBay's Trade Assist listings:
http://contact.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?TradingAssistant

Here you can put in your zip and find people who are willing to assist
with selling on ebay. For about 30%-40% of the final price, you can
have someone come to your house, pick the stuff up, sell it, and mail
you a check.

Sure, it's not cash up front, but I bet it's the best you can get
(money wise). And you can probably wait a couple weeks for the money
without major impact to your lifestyle. Most of these people are
honest hardworking young people with good references.

Cheers,
_Dave