Estate Sales Increase Dramatically

More and more people are shopping at estate sales, lining up before dawn to be among the first to rummage through other people’s castoffs. As the number of these shoppers grows, so does the number of sales, mainly because baby boomers are downsizing, baby boomers are moving into assisted living, and because so many homes are in foreclosure.

Professional organizers, who previously held these sales primarily in the spring and summer, are now working year-round. Further, the sales are now held from Wednesday to Sunday, whereas they were previously held only on weekends.

Websites that list these sales, such as Estatesales.net, have also noticed the drastic increase in business. Estatesales.net currently lists around 75,000 sales each week and has over 150,000 people signed up for its e-mail alerts.

Diane Mars, a real estate agent in California, supplements her income by selling excess items on ebay. Ms. Mars says it’s becoming hard to decide which estate sales to attend because there are so many.

For more information, including tips on estate sale etiquette, see Kate Murphy, For Estate Sales, Boom Times, N.Y. Times, Dec. 22, 2010.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.