Big Business in Estate Sales

Liquidating a relative’s estate is an incredibly personal ordeal, yet is becoming an increasingly common industry.  With the population aging, the estate sale business is ever booming. 

Because this industry is unregulated and has no central licensing body, it is impossible to know how many estate liquidation companies operate in the United States or how much their numbers are increasing.  However, Julie Hall, the president of the American Society of Estate Liquidators, said that there could be 14,000 companies nationwide and that the market is expanding.  “It’s definitely growing at a rapid rate,” Ms. Hall said.  She says that she receives around six inquiries from potential new start-ups every couple days, “the market is already flooded . . . The competition is fierce, and only the strongest and the best will do exceptionally well.” 

Most estate sale companies have traditionally been mom-and-pop operations that cater to a regional clientele.  Yet, in recent years, a handful of successful franchise businesses with “wider-than-local ambitions” have emerged. 

Estate sale companies typically retain 25 to 50 percent of the proceeds from sales, based on the number of items offered.  For that, they handle the staging of the event at a client’s house, including online promotion, hiring workers to conduct the sale, setting prices, and cleaning up before and after. 

See Alan Feuer, Managing Estate Sales Becomes Big Business, The New York Times, March 11, 2015. 

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