Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
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We are considering selling our house and the majority of our possessions to start our full time RV lifestyle. Curious to hear from those that have done the same and how you sold most of your items? Piecemeal or through an estate sale company? Looks like they charge hefty commissions but if they can get more money, maybe it’s worth it?
Some are good, others stink. Ask their recent customers...ask for a list. Ask the tuff questions.
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Winnebago TT 2101DS & 2020 Silverado LTZ Z71. 300 watts WindyNation solar w/MPPT, 2 Trojan T-125s. TALL flag pole. Prefer USFS, COE, BLM, USF&WS, NPS, TVA, state/county camps. 14 year Army vet-11B40 then 11A - old MOS 1542 & 1560.
We sold all our "stuff" via Ebay. It took about 2 years and was a LOT of work. But Ebay and PayPal only took about 13%, much lower than estate sale outfits.
We had less than six weeks to accomplish "the purge" (house sold in five months less than predicted). We used a multi-faceted approach:
1) Called all the kids and said, "Come get what you want." 2) Had two garage sales (moderate success). 3) Gave several furniture items to Hispanic friends from the mission point where we were involved. 4) Donated leftovers to Goodwill and other charities. 5) Left a "starter kit" in climate controlled storage in case we have to come off the road unexpectedly. Some full-timers are against this and say you can repurchase the stored items for what you pay in storage fees.
We didn't consider an estate sale business as they take a significant cut and we didn't have that much that was worth selling.
Rob
-- Edited by Second Chance on Saturday 24th of August 2019 01:45:35 PM
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2012 F350 DRW Lariat 6.7
PullRite OE 18K, Demco Glide Ride pinbox
2020 Solitude 310GK-R, MORryde IS, disc brakes, solar, DP windows
We lived in our home for more than 25 years and we worked for two years on downsizing. Over the two years we had multiple garage sales which were a lot of work, gave things to our children, threw out a lot of “stuff”, and donated the rest. We also sold some things online. We saved only our bedroom furniture and some personal things which are stored in our daughter’s basement. We never considered an estate sale - most things of value were passed on to our children.
Good luck as you work toward becoming a full timer!
We had 3 weeks to get rid of a 2800 sq ft house full of furniture and other items. We had two estate sales (which we did ourselves using only advertisement in Craig’s List and signs) in the beginning of December. It took only two weeks to clear out everything.
After researching actual Estate Sale companies listening to their spiel we decided to do it ourselves. First day they stated everything was full price (with the exception of The estate sale company’s employees - they got 30% off), the second day was 50% off the 1st day pricing (again the estate sale employees received 30% off), the final day was 20-25% off the original pricing. (Same discount for employees) Anything remaining was carted off to whomever they wanted.
We talked to 4 different companies and this was the same between all of them. PLUS, (this was the kicker for me) we could not be anywhere around our home during or after the sale. Didn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling to say the least.
How did we move a 4 bedroom, 4 bath home full of items so quick - I inventoried each room, took us 6 pages, then the wife and myself sat down and priced each item. As people came into the house I handed them the inventory sheets which had them walk around the house clockwise. We sold 80% of our inventoried items the first day. With zero negotiations required. The price was the price. We sold the remaining items off the inventory sheets the second day.
The second weekend was all of the garage items. We only priced the large items and set up different tables that stated everything on the table was $XX. We used color dots to identify the specific $xx items.
Hopefully this will provide you some ideas to use. I wouldn’t use an Estate Sale company after listening to them. But then that’s just my opinion.
We had less than six weeks to accomplish "the purge" (house sold in five months less than predicted). We used a multi-faceted approach:
1) Called all the kids and said, "Come get what you want." 2) Had two garage sales (moderate success). 3) Gave several furniture items to Hispanic friends from the mission point where we were involved. 4) Donated leftovers to Goodwill and other charities. 5) Left a "starter kit" in climate controlled storage in case we have to come off the road unexpectedly. Some full-timers are against this and say you can repurchase the stored items for what you pay in storage fees.
We didn't consider an estate sale business as they take a significant cut and we didn't have that much that was worth selling.
Rob
-- Edited by Second Chance on Saturday 24th of August 2019 01:45:35 PM
We did almost the same as Second Chance. Kids took nearly all the furniture, Goodwill got almost everthing else. Buyer of our house (very nice couple) said we could leave anything we wanted to leave because they loved it all ... so we did. We also have a small climate controlled storage cubical ... for those things that we just couldn't part with and were of no value to anyone else.
Ron
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Ron and Janice
2016 Ford F350, King Ranch, DRW, 4x4, CC, 6.7 PS Diesel, remote control air lift system
2017 Durango Gold 381REF, Lambright furniture, MCD shades, morRYDE IS, 8K Disc brakes, GY G114 LR H Tires, 27,320 lbs CGVW
Sold a few items on Craigslist, gave kid what they wanted, kept the stuff Connie wanted to keep and donated the vast majority of what is left. Unless money is tight...garage and other sales is a pretty low hourly rate of return.
