Theodores
today at 6:07 PM
I get it, but, for every estate sale, there are people that have lost a parent, a grandparent, a friend, a neighbour.
There will be people, the executors of the will, that need to clear the house, however, much which is just $$$ to you will be heirloom grade stuff to them, with memories of happier times attached. Yet still, they need to realise the assets from the estate, maybe there are grandchildren with inheritances in that mountain of cruft left over after a long life.
Sure, there are things that just need to go, that the executors of the will would consider paying to get cleared.
As for getting things like the cables and power bricks that go with electrical items, chances are that the deceased was not doing a good job of keeping everything in order, they might even have a bit of hoarding going on. It is no easy job to repatriate cables with electrical items, that might have gone to the tip already, as e-waste.
There is also a tendency for men to put value on what most women will just see as e-waste. Similarly, with clothes, men see the whole lot as jumble sale trash, whereas women are more likely to see value in these items. I say this not to court sexist allegations, it is just that, if a woman clears the house, there is a slimmer likelihood of getting that lead for that obsolete electronic kit that somehow is considered valuable.
Sometimes the estate is too much work for the relatives, so the solicitor might get the keys to the house and instructions to get it all cleared. These are a minority of cases, usually, the relatives do pick through everything and put stuff in charity shops, charity shops that deal with big items of furniture, up to half a dozen 'skips' (British English term) and so on. I would say there isn't going to be a estate sale in these situations, really you are relying on the minority of sales where the solicitor gets the key, if you are going the estate sales route.
myself248
today at 7:27 PM
Oh, all the estate sales I go to are run (and posted) by third parties, who do it as a business, for a percentage of the sales. The heirs are nowhere to be found -- they got a first pass through the house a few days prior to grab anything sentimental, and they'll show up a few days later when the business has been transacted. But the folks running the sale are professionals.
Which means they should know better. And some of them do -- I have a few local favorite companies, where I know they'll keep things together, they're good about finding manuals in file cabinets and putting them with their respective items, etc. I'm usually happy to pay their asking price, because they're interested in seeing the items go to good homes and get reused, and take care accordingly.
But, likewise I have some "un-favorites", one who was notorious for sticking price-tags on screens. I might've finally trained them out of this when I told them I'd only pay their asking price for a particular piece of test equipment if they could remove the sticker without damage. They removed it, the already-degrading plastic screen was obviously fucked by the adhesive, they exchanged awkward glances with each other, and I walked away. Maybe they'll keep that in mind on the next sale they run.