Walk into enough Boise estate cleanouts and you start noticing the little colored stickers. A dresser marked $40, a box of Pyrex, a recliner somebody's cousin swore would sell.
Most of the time the stickers are still there because the sale never happened. Or it did, and half the house never moved.
So here's the question we hear most before an estate cleanout. Should you hold an estate sale first, or skip it and just clear the house?
There's no single right answer. There is a pretty reliable way to figure out which one fits your family, though.
What an estate sale actually gets you
An estate sale turns belongings into cash. It also puts some of them in homes where they'll get used again, and for a lot of families that matters as much as the money.
The catch is that estate sale companies work on commission, and it's not a small cut. Ask for the exact percentage before you sign anything.
A lot of them are picky, too. If there isn't enough sellable stuff to make a weekend worth their time, they'll pass.
And whatever doesn't sell is still yours to deal with. That's the part nobody plans for.
Signs a sale is worth the wait
If your parents kept things people actually shop for, like mid-century furniture, good hand tools, a well-stocked garage shop or vintage Western gear, a sale can bring in real money.
Time matters. If the house isn't listing for a couple of months and nobody's stretched thin paying for an empty place, you can let a sale run its course.
Then there's where the house is. A sale in the North End or a busy Meridian neighborhood off Ten Mile tends to draw a crowd, while a rural place past Middleton might not, especially on a 100-degree August weekend.
Here's a simple test. Walk through the house and ask whether most of what you see is worth more than it'd cost to haul away. If it is, a sale probably makes sense.
When to skip the sale and go straight to the estate cleanout
So what doesn't sell? More than you'd expect. Worn upholstered furniture, older TVs, particleboard bookcases, everyday dishes and bedding rarely bring in much of anything.
If a home was lived in for 40 years and it's mostly ordinary household things, the sale might cover the company's commission and not a lot else. Then you're booking a cleanout anyway, just three or four weeks later.
Yes, we'd love the work either way. But honestly, we've watched families lose a month waiting on a sale that netted a few hundred bucks.
Deadlines change the math. Maybe there's a closing date or a landlord who wants the unit back. Or the house is sitting empty through a Treasure Valley winter, and you're paying to heat it so the pipes don't freeze.
Sometimes the home itself rules out a sale. If a parent had a hard time keeping up in their later years, some rooms may not be safe for strangers to walk through.
That's nothing to be embarrassed about. It happens in more families than you'd think, and it's work we handle quietly and carefully.
Doing both? Get the order right
Plenty of families do a sale and then a cleanout. It works fine when it's planned that way from the start.
Before anyone prices a single item, pull out what the family's keeping. Photos, paperwork, jewelry, the quilt everybody wants. Once a sale opens, things leave fast and you don't get them back.
Next, check with whoever's handling the estate. If it's in probate, the personal representative may need to sign off before anything is sold or tossed. An estate attorney can tell you what applies to you.
Then hold the sale, and book the estate cleanout before the sale ends. Otherwise the leftovers just sit there while you hunt for a crew.
Tip: Ask the estate sale company what happens to anything that doesn't sell. Some offer a buyout or a donation pickup, but plenty leave it all behind. Knowing that ahead of time lets you book the cleanout for the Monday after the sale.
How long an estate cleanout takes and what it costs
A cleanout after a sale goes faster and costs less because there's less in the house. A picked-over three-bedroom in Nampa or up on the Bench usually takes us a day.
A full home that never had a sale is more like three to five days, depending on the garage, the basement and how much needs sorting.
We sort as we go. Usable furniture and household goods go to donation where we can, metal gets recycled, and the rest heads to the Ada County landfill or Pickles Butte out in Canyon County.
If we find anything personal, like letters, old photos or cash tucked in a coffee can, we set it aside for you. That last one happens more than you'd guess.
Cost comes down mostly to volume and access. A light, picked-over house might run a few hundred dollars, while a full home with a packed garage can run into the thousands. We'll give you a ballpark over the phone and a firm price once we've seen it.
The bottom line: if the house has real value in it and you've got time, a sale first can pay off. If it's mostly everyday stuff or the clock's running, skip it and call for the cleanout. Either way, pull out what the family's keeping before anyone else walks in.
Not sure which camp your house falls into? Give us a call at (208) 943-5231. We'll talk it through, and if a sale makes more sense, we'll say so.