Should I have a Garage Sale Before the Estate Sale?

This could be a real short article by just saying no. First, many areas have limits on how often you can have a garage sale / estate sale. In San Antonio, it is once per quarter and twice per year in Castle Hills. If you run a garage sale, you may have to wait a while to do an estate sale.

The bigger issue is taking good items to have a garage sale. This is done to avoid having to pay a commission. Like most greedy moves, it ends poorly for the client.

You will not receive anywhere near the amount that it would sell in the estate sale for better items. It also hurts the estate sale, because if the best items are gone, less reason to visit the estate sale.

There are plenty of choices in the San Antonio area for an estate sale and most people don’t have the money or the time to go to all of them.
For example, there was a sale an estate company thought it would do $50,000 in sales.

The client took out the best stuff which he figured would have been $30,000 in sales. They received about $1,100 in the garage sale for these items.

You are probably thinking well, they will still do $20,000 in sales.
Unfortunately with the best items gone, it probably be lucky to do $10,000.

Take what you want before you talk to an estate sale company. Much of their price is based on the sales potential and the hours involved to get the sale ready and what it takes to sell it during the estate sale.

So, don’t do a garage sale. It is not worth your time and will be very costly to you.