House clearing/Bereavement/Help/Selling Stuff

[Futurescared]

Has anyone got any suggestions as to places that might be willing to buy (or sell on behalf of someone else) small low value items?

This is about clearing a house after a death. There are a lot of small items that individually are low value - like glass ornaments, tea cups and so on - but not Ming china types.

They are the sort of stuff that would sell on Ebay but there is so much of it that I don't have the time or skill to do it myself.

I've looked for Ebay re- sellers (people who will sell for you) and most have a minimum cut off value per individual item. The lowest I found was £20 per individual item. A lot of this stuff would be below the minimum value - like £5 or so.

But there is so much of it that together it would add up to quite a sum as part of the estate so I don't just want to chuck it out or give it away.

Has anyone got any suggestions? Can you sell directly to junk shops? Are there places that would buy a job lot?

No idea what to do or where to start. Internet not helpful -beyond these ebay re-sellers which I didn't have any luck with.

Quite honestly these items don't sound as if they are particularly saleable. Either offer them on your local Facebook page for free or donate them to a charity.

House clearance. They normally offer (or at least we do) a free quote. Sometimes they clear for free, sometimes clear and pay the householder, sometimes need to be paid to clear it.

Failing that an open house advertised of FB. However this is emotionally draining.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I agree with pp.
No-one is going to buy a load of stuff they will only be able to sell for a fiver. Not worth their time or storage space I'm afraid - as you are already admitting by not having time to do it yourself

No, and tbh if you’re offering a percentage on a £5 sale it isn’t worth anyone’s time.

Car boot sale

No-one is going to buy a load of stuff they will only be able to sell for a fiver. Not worth their time or storage space I'm afraid - as you are already admitting by not having time to do it yourself

The problem is there is tons of this stuff - like say individual tea cups that are probably worth about £5- 10 quid each but there are like 50 of them - so it all adds up. It is nice looking stuff. I think the total value is substantial but the individual values are negligible. There are some items that are individually worth more but again, it's a lot of work to sell individually.

i have responsibility for the estate so I feel like I can't just donate or give away things that have some value.

It would suit say someone who runs a bric a brac shop or something like that where they could just take the lot and stick it in a shop.

@ShopOfAllTrades thank you for your condolences. What is house clearance? are there companies that do this? is that what I need to google?

It's not so much as the whole house needs clearing though - it's more like here is a very large random collection of china, glassware and ornaments that together has a value - rather than here have some furniture and everythign and clear the whole house.

I suppose a car boot sale isn't a bad idea but I have no experience of that. does anyone know if there are people you could pay to do a car boot sale for you? does that exist as a thing?

Auction houses sell mixed lots - so for instance all the teacups together.

They sell because people hope to find something decent in the junk. You won’t get the full value though (so not £100 for 20x £5 tea cups). And there will be fees to pay.

we did 4 car boots & clothing went to charity shops and some larger items on eBay and market place

When my mum goes, I’ll be getting in a house clearance company once I’ve cleared out all the booze! There’s just so much stuff, some might be reasonably valuable but I don’t have the energy to sell crockery/Le Creuset/Lalique. She keeps insisting I remove a Victorian tiled fireplace-what am I supposed to do with it??

If you can find a dealer for the teacups, get them round, otherwise clearance company.

House clearance specialists will advertise in the local free ads, local newspaper, online, Facebook, etc. Or if you've dealt with the rubbish/junk yourself see if a junk/antique shop will make an offer as a job lot.

But please don't expect them to do all the work and give you a significant slice of the value. That's not how house clearance works. They'll likely make an estimate, give you a lowball fixed amount, and you take it or leave it.

The alternative is to put it to auction. But again, by shunting the work to someone else you'll also be handing them most of the value realised from the sale. And auction values are much lower than retail.

DH and siblings chose what they wanted. After that most items went to charity shops, and DH did a trip to tip. He thinks his Mum would have been happy with charity benefitting.

Just Google house clearance and your town.
Some auction houses have a house clearance department, they sell the stuff in group lots which pads out their auction days.

We recently cleared out my in-laws house ready to put it on the market. There was nothing of particular monetary value (lots of nick nacks, vases, ornaments, old dinner services etc) and we just gave it to charity shops. A few bits of decent furniture were advertised on marketplace for free and even most of those did not get collected. Unless you have hours and hours to list things, phone up house clearance people etc I would just give it to charity.

I paid a very small fee (£150-ish?) for a house clearance company to come in and take all of the sort of bits you mention OP plus clear everything that wasn't worth anything. That was after I had removed everything of sentimental value and greater financial worth of course. You have to draw a line at what is practical to sell on somewhere. If there are others who are to benefit from the estate, you could ask them if they want to do the donkey work to sell it (and keep the proceeds for themselves) before you clear it, but I doubt the money gained will be worth the time and effort invested for them either.