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The Ridiculous History of Estate Sales · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Everything must go except for our
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  Speaker 1: super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: I will hang on forever.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, I appreciate you giving me the
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  Speaker 1: choice there.
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  Speaker 2: I do. I do. It's up to you, man. The
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  Speaker 2: choice is yours. But I'm glad you're sticking around. Yes, yes, yes.
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  Speaker 1: So say we all. Nine years in and we're still
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  Speaker 1: continuing toward the end of 2006. That's Noel Brown.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Ben Bolin. 2026.
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  Speaker 1: 2026. Did I say 2006? You did. Oh, geez. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we'll do an episode on, wait, we already did an
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  Speaker 1: episode on the calendar. Let's leave it in. Noel, have
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  Speaker 1: you ever been to an estate sale?
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  Speaker 2: You know, I was racking my brain about it.
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  Speaker 3: And an estate sale, as we were going to lay
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  Speaker 3: out in this episode, which is a very particular kind
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  Speaker 3: of situation. I've only been to one of these maybe
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  Speaker 3: one time where you're actually wandering through someone's home.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Max and I were talking about this a little
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  Speaker 1: off air. One of my comedy buddies in our fair
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  Speaker 1: metropolis of Atlanta loves going to estate sales. He's the
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  Speaker 1: kind of guy, and I say this with great affection
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  Speaker 1: and respect, he's the kind of guy who will take
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  Speaker 1: a vacation and then go antiquing. His name's Simon. He's
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  Speaker 1: pretty cool.
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  Speaker 3: Ben, I respect your decision to take this out, but
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  Speaker 3: I have to repeat back, affect and respection, because that
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  Speaker 3: is a thing that should exist in the world.
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  Speaker 2: There we go.
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  Speaker 1: And we're coming hot on the heels of another language
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  Speaker 1: episode from earlier this week that we love. Noel, I
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  Speaker 1: was wondering, as we were going toward this episode, what
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  Speaker 1: the difference between an estate sale versus a yard sale
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  Speaker 1: could be.
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  Speaker 3: Well, my understanding, which is limited, admittedly, is that a
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  Speaker 3: yard sale would be something that happens while folks are
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  Speaker 3: still alive. Just kind of chucking their stuff on some
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  Speaker 3: tables in the front yard, putting up signs around the neighborhood.
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  Speaker 2: Also may be known as a rummage sale.
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  Speaker 3: An estate sale is a little more official and usually
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  Speaker 3: involves people selling to the public the leftover stuff from
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  Speaker 3: someone's life after they have passed away.
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  Speaker 1: Nailed it.
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  Speaker 3: Usually after it's been distributed to the living heirs. This
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  Speaker 3: is the stuff that's left over that nobody wants to
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  Speaker 3: deal with.
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  Speaker 2: I'm in a similar situation right now.
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  Speaker 3: I've had my mother's stuff in storage for some years now,
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  Speaker 3: and I just really started getting sick of getting that
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  Speaker 3: bill for these storage units. So I'm getting to a
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  Speaker 3: place where While I guess it won't be an estate
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  Speaker 3: sale per se, I am going to start moving some
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  Speaker 3: of these things to my home in my garage and
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  Speaker 3: then start going through them and then deciding what I
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  Speaker 3: want to keep and what I do want to potentially
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  Speaker 3: either donate or sell.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know me, man. I love helping people move sincerely.
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  Speaker 1: So if you want a pair of extra hands for
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  Speaker 1: a big shiver robe or something, just let me know
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  Speaker 1: and we can make a deal.
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  Speaker 2: Will you bust it up for me if I need
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  Speaker 2: you to? So a yard sale, you know that there is.
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  Speaker 1: A more of a casual DIY event where the living
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  Speaker 1: owner of stuff puts, like you said, a table out
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  Speaker 1: in the yard and they sell some stuff. They've they
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  Speaker 1: poster up some signs in the neighborhood to let people
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  Speaker 1: know when to show up. Whereas an estate sale is
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  Speaker 1: often professionally managed, it is the liquidation of an entire
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  Speaker 1: household's contents. And it turns out we, all three of us,
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  Speaker 1: kind of have varying degrees of the old. So we're
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  Speaker 1: not plugged in necessarily to what the kids love, but
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  Speaker 1: Millennial and Gen Z adults, Noel, apparently love estate sales.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I see that. And I have read that. I
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  Speaker 3: would also argue that there are plenty of Gen Xers
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  Speaker 3: who also love estate sales.
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  Speaker 2: There we go.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know that this is particularly unique, but, you know,
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  Speaker 3: who are we to say? I will say this. It
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  Speaker 3: makes sense and aligns with some of the millennial and
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  Speaker 3: Gen Z backlash against sort of like aggressive modernity. that
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  Speaker 3: I think has come sort of post-COVID, like I mentioned
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  Speaker 3: on Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, our sister podcast,
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  Speaker 3: that my kid told me just the other day that
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  Speaker 3: they have instituted a self-imposed hour screen time limit. And
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  Speaker 3: I think that is very much hand in hand with
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  Speaker 3: this sort of fascination with more vintage stuff and unplugging
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  Speaker 3: and like using, say, more dated technology and dumb phones,
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  Speaker 3: flip phones, listening to records instead of you know, endlessly
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  Speaker 3: streaming playlists on Spotify or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: A little more of an analog lifestyle.
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  Speaker 2: And soon they'll be reading the broadsheets.
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  Speaker 1: We can only hope the broadsheets survive long enough for
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  Speaker 1: that renaissance to occur. There's a question here that bugged
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  Speaker 1: our research associate Ames, and we wanted to attempt to
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  Speaker 1: answer it today. How estate sales work. Now, it's No
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  Speaker 1: secret that human beings have been selling off the possessions
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  Speaker 1: of the dead for a long, long time. Even if
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  Speaker 1: you go back to ancient Rome, states would be liquidated
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  Speaker 1: and they would be sold often to cover remaining debts
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  Speaker 1: after someone passed away or to give some sort of
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  Speaker 1: financial safety net to the surviving family members.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and where the modern concept of an estate sale
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  Speaker 3: really started to take off, if you can imagine, which
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  Speaker 3: I think you can, is in the Victorian era. Because
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  Speaker 3: that's when we're starting to think about like fancy schmancy
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  Speaker 3: furniture and silver and things like that. Much like the Egyptians,
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  Speaker 3: wealthy Victorian families frequently held house sales where they would
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  Speaker 3: portion off parts of the estate in order to pay
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  Speaker 3: for a move. or perhaps to your point, Ben, covered
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  Speaker 3: debts or split up an inheritance between beneficiaries.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is where we see trust deployed often.
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  Speaker 1: The trust are a common tool to ensure that the
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  Speaker 1: the surviving children would over time benefit from the wealth
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  Speaker 1: their parents left behind. So you're a property owner, you die.
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  Speaker 1: The majority of your wealth passes to your appointed trustees.
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  Speaker 1: And when your spouse dies or when the kids attain
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  Speaker 1: their majority, when they reach adulthood, then all the assets,
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  Speaker 1: all the property, all the stuff held in trust is
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  Speaker 1: divided or sold off by the trustees. And in theory,
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  Speaker 1: it is shared equally between all surviving children. But as
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  Speaker 1: anybody who has participated in humanity knows, sometimes the surviving
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  Speaker 1: family members fight, fang and claw, to get everything.
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  Speaker 2: Bit of a squabble type situation.
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  Speaker 3: So this period is marked, the Victorian period is marked
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  Speaker 3: by more consumerism than the preceding economically depressed Georgian period. era,
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  Speaker 3: thanks to industrialization, expansion of technology, transportation, things like that.
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  Speaker 3: And so as such, folks with means had even more
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  Speaker 3: means with which to furnish and bedazzle their homes, their estates.
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  Speaker 3: So an important social marker of the Victorian era, which
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  Speaker 3: was described here in the book Inside the Victorian Home,
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  Speaker 3: by Judith Flanders. She goes through a typical bourgeois dwelling
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  Speaker 3: room by room and looks at the material goods that
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  Speaker 3: are likely to be found in each, and she describes
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  Speaker 3: it as such. The ever-increasing number of objects in British
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  Speaker 3: homes of the era, especially from the 1860s on, created
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  Speaker 3: a deluge of things. So we are kind of entering
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  Speaker 3: the era of hoarding. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And I love this.
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  Speaker 1: I love this note. Our source here is Jennifer Howard
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  Speaker 1: writing for LitHub.com. Do we have Victorians to thank for consumerism?
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  Speaker 1: Jennifer says, quote, there were things to cover things, things
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  Speaker 1: to hold other things, things that were representations of yet
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  Speaker 1: more things, things to hold other things, prefiguring of the
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  Speaker 1: organization of life in the age of the container store.
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  Speaker 1: That last bit is from Ames. And We see this
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  Speaker 1: establishment of material expectations that persist today. How do we
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  Speaker 1: normalize what defines a good or well-appointed home? And if
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  Speaker 1: you are listening from the hallowed halls of the United
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  Speaker 1: States of America, you know that we are all material girls.
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  Speaker 1: The aesthetic for the U.S. has always been, at least
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  Speaker 1: the modern U.S., has always been bigger is better. supersize
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  Speaker 1: this thing.
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  Speaker 2: More is more.
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  Speaker 1: And that leads to some crazy estate sales.
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  Speaker 3: Ben, I like a twist on the we're all material
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  Speaker 3: girls living in material world from the police, which is
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  Speaker 3: we're all spirits in the material world.
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  Speaker 1: And folks, obviously, you know that we are not living
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  Speaker 1: in the Victorian era today. So modern estate estate sales are,
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  Speaker 1: they're descended from Victorian estate sales, but they're a very
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  Speaker 1: different thing. Now you don't have to be a highfalutin
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  Speaker 1: aristocrat to have an estate sale. If you, you can
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  Speaker 1: be anybody. who has passed away usually. And the stuff
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  Speaker 1: that you'll see could be kitschy vintage items. That's what
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  Speaker 1: my buddy Simon loves. But you'll also see expensive silver,
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  Speaker 1: rare artwork, homemade gifts. You'll see things that might be
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  Speaker 1: worth a ton of money on Antiques Roadshow.
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  Speaker 2: Potentially, right?
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  Speaker 3: And sometimes you do need an expert to help you
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  Speaker 3: identify what those things are. And, you know, I'm certain
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  Speaker 3: there are examples where folks just do all of this themselves,
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  Speaker 3: but typically you do hire some sort of expert who
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  Speaker 3: helps you go through everything, catalog everything, make sure you
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  Speaker 3: know what the high value items are actually worth, and
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  Speaker 3: then assist you in sort of like operating almost like
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  Speaker 3: an open house, like a realtor almost, right? So this allows...
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  Speaker 3: people in the streets to quite literally walk into other
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  Speaker 3: people's homes, hence the traditional concept of an estate, and
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  Speaker 3: pick through literally, or at least the remaining items that
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  Speaker 3: have not been divvied up amongst the living heirs.
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  Speaker 2: Just about everything is for sale. Yeah. Just about.
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  Speaker 3: And it's important to note that there are, However, a
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  Speaker 3: standard kind of set of rules and expectations, some spoken,
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  Speaker 3: some unspoken, that are still in place regardless of how
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  Speaker 3: fancy or expensive the sale is. So you definitely want
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  Speaker 3: to come in armed with this information if you're going
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  Speaker 3: to start going out picking.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are rules of the road. And just a
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  Speaker 1: brief anecdote here. My pal Simon, who is very, very
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  Speaker 1: into estate sales, as we mentioned, he taught me a
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  Speaker 1: lot of this, and I didn't realize how serious this
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  Speaker 1: can be for enthusiasts. We're going to give you, courtesy
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  Speaker 1: of Ames, the top five things you need to know
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  Speaker 1: about estate sales. The rule is, first come, first serve.
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  Speaker 1: You're driving around a nice neighborhood. Why is there a
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  Speaker 1: line of people outside of one house at 7 a.m.?
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  Speaker 1: It is because they want dibs on the primo items.
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  Speaker 1: Some of these folks are collectors and they might be
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  Speaker 1: looking for a specific piece or type of artifact. Some
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  Speaker 1: of these people might be working for film or production companies, right?
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  Speaker 1: And they want some set dressing.
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  Speaker 2: Correct.
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  Speaker 3: So there are folks that are going to come in
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  Speaker 3: with a much more honed eye, maybe like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: go to these things all the time. And they might
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  Speaker 3: be going to one of these in particular because of something.
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  Speaker 2: They know in advance.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Like a little intel. Correct.
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  Speaker 1: And everybody who comes into the estate sale first come
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  Speaker 1: first serve. It's everybody being treated equally. There is one
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  Speaker 1: other rule you need to know from the jump. take
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  Speaker 1: a little pee break first because rule number two is
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  Speaker 1: no using the bathrooms.
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  Speaker 2: Makes sense. I mean, the bathroom is, you know, a
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  Speaker 2: very private place.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you are essentially entering someone's home and this
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  Speaker 3: could be a home that is still, you know, occupied
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  Speaker 3: by whether it be living heirs or perhaps a spouse
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  Speaker 3: that has survived the individual who passed away.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, bathrooms are indeed off limits to shoppers.
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  Speaker 3: Discounts, however, are not off limits, are in fact the
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  Speaker 3: order of the day, and they are staggered by day.
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  Speaker 3: Haggling on the first day is usually considered poor form,
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  Speaker 3: but as the week goes on, or the weekend rather,
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  Speaker 3: it's easier to snag a good deal, typically with 25%
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  Speaker 3: applied in discount per day as things remain. You are
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  Speaker 3: going to see people lining up first thing in the morning,
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  Speaker 3: That's because they want to catch those really, really special items,
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  Speaker 3: and those things are going to go first. And then
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  Speaker 3: as the dregs, let's call it, not to diminish anyone's
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  Speaker 3: remaining property as the dregs, but as far as the
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  Speaker 3: shoppers are concerned, that is what would be left, typically 25%
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  Speaker 3: a day. Second day would be 50%. Third day, towards
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  Speaker 3: the end, you're going to see a lot of crazy
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  Speaker 3: deals with whatever's left over.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the companies– and it is often a third-party
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  Speaker 1: company that runs these things– Their goal is to get
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  Speaker 1: as much as possible gone as quickly as possible. So
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  Speaker 1: that's why number three discounts are staggered by the day.
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  Speaker 1: Number four, and we don't want to ruin anybody's family
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  Speaker 1: adventure for the weekend.
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  Speaker 2: No children.
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  Speaker 1: Pretty often estate sales will say we can't have kids around.
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  Speaker 1: They're a liability. They might mess with stuff. They might,
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  Speaker 1: you know, touch something dangerous, hurt themselves, etc., Some estate
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  Speaker 1: sales don't mind kids, but there's there's one big rule
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  Speaker 1: that I've actually seen people fight about. This is our
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  Speaker 1: fifth rule of the top five. It's the law of
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  Speaker 1: the hold table.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, even if you've been to like any
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  Speaker 3: antique stores like here in Atlanta, we have a really
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  Speaker 3: cool spot called Kudzu. and they have a hold table,
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  Speaker 3: which is a table, literally, designated for shoppers to store
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  Speaker 3: their potential purchases.
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  Speaker 2: Because oftentimes these things can be chunky.
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  Speaker 3: Or it could well be they write hold on the
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  Speaker 3: back of a tag if it is a giant article
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  Speaker 3: of furniture, for example.
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  Speaker 1: Like a church pew or something.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but this is a designated space for shoppers to
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  Speaker 3: hold their potential purchases while they finish roaming around the
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  Speaker 3: house looking for other deals.
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  Speaker 2: The hold table is considered sacrosanct, so... Hands off. Hands off.
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  Speaker 1: Don't be that person. There is an entire industry of
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  Speaker 1: professionals who run the estate sales circuit. These estate sale
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  Speaker 1: companies are the best way to describe them. We've already
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  Speaker 1: kind of said this. They're a business that comes into
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  Speaker 1: a home. They sort and price everything inside it. They
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  Speaker 1: stage the home like it's a pop-up store. They advertise
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  Speaker 1: the sale. They will have staff there for one to
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  Speaker 1: three days. They'll run the checkout. and they will clear
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  Speaker 1: whatever is left over. And they do this for a percentage,
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  Speaker 1: usually going to be 30 to 50% of the total sales.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty hefty, right? You'll also see similar companies operating
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  Speaker 1: in office building liquidations.
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  Speaker 2: For sure.
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  Speaker 3: And this doesn't just happen when a family member dies.
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  Speaker 3: It could involve someone moving out of the home into
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  Speaker 3: an assisted living facility or someone that maybe simply just
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  Speaker 3: wants to considerably downsize or maybe they decided to become
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  Speaker 3: a Buddhist and they want to, you know, part with
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  Speaker 3: all of their worldly possessions. Or this can also happen
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  Speaker 3: in the event of divorce.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And we can understand this. We can exercise empathy for
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  Speaker 1: these situations because if you are trying to get rid
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  Speaker 1: of all the stuff that you have accumulated and you're
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  Speaker 1: on your own, What, you're going to take a second
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  Speaker 1: job on eBay and Facebook Marketplace selling stuff piece by piece,
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  Speaker 1: doing yard sales as often as you can? It's a lot.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, people, you know, think of the kind of
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  Speaker 3: people whose their whole job is to, like, set up
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  Speaker 3: stands at flea markets or various, like, record fairs and
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  Speaker 3: stuff like that. I mean, it is, you know, usually
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  Speaker 3: when people are doing this and selling things in these
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  Speaker 3: physical spaces, they're also listing things.
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  Speaker 2: On eBay or Discogs or whatever. It is a whole thing.
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  Speaker 2: job unto itself. It's a career.
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  Speaker 3: Definitely not something that the average person wants to mess with.
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  Speaker 3: So that 30 to 50%, while it might seem steep,
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  Speaker 3: you are getting quite a lot for your money. At
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  Speaker 3: the very least, you're getting more than you would if
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  Speaker 3: you just let the stuff sit in storage like I've
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  Speaker 3: been doing. I do want to point out, too, that
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  Speaker 3: there is another version of this that I think is
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  Speaker 3: kind of interesting. The idea of a storage unit auction,
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  Speaker 3: which happens when people don't pay their bills. Maybe there's
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  Speaker 3: stuff in storage and someone passes away and then the,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the bill for the storage facility gets delinquent.
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  Speaker 3: And it varies, I suppose, place to place, you know,
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  Speaker 3: organization to organization, how long they let that go before
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  Speaker 3: they literally take a pair of bolt cutters, open up the,
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  Speaker 3: you know, crack open the unit and bid.
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  Speaker 2: All the items inside off, you know, to the public.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a blind box, really.
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  Speaker 2: It can be.
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  Speaker 3: And I know people that do this and they can,
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  Speaker 3: you know, they'll buy up a whole, the whole unit.
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  Speaker 3: They sell them as lots sometimes. And this is also
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  Speaker 3: the business behind shows like Storage Wars. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And you also, as a normie, as a civilian or
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  Speaker 1: estate sale enthusiast, you can download apps in the digital age,
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  Speaker 1: things like estatesales.net, and you can scan your city. This
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  Speaker 1: will show you the locations of current estate sales. And
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  Speaker 1: in bigger cities, they're typically going to be a baker's
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  Speaker 1: dozen or more each and every weekend. And you might
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  Speaker 1: at this point wonder, like we did, how are there
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: so many estate sales? The answer is the baby boomer generation.
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  Speaker 1: We talked in a previous episode about the great vowel
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  Speaker 1: shift in silent letters. This is the great stuff transfer.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 3: According to the Pew Research Center, there were an estimated
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: 65 million baby boomers in the US as of the
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: year 2024, currently ranging in age from 62 to 80
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: years old. So no matter how fit you might be.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: They're approaching their departure from.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: This mortal coil.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Or retirement.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Well, that as well. Good point, Ben.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Though their generation is more likely to stay in the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: workforce a bit longer than previous generations, many of these
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: folks are reaching an age where downsizing is necessary. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: it is incredibly necessary because the boomers were the generation
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: of acquisition.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: This is a halcyon time for The boomers are coming
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: about in the they're called boomers because the post World
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: War Two economic boom, the United States is one of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the only Western nations that didn't get its infrastructure absolutely
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: rocked by a global conflict. And then as a result.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: The boomers become the first American generation to grow up
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: in the era of mass production, blatant consumerism, buy that house,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: buy that car, buy a second car, where's your microwave?
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the things that they bought, unlike today,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: were built to last. They didn't have the planned obsolescence
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: so common in most modern products. So if you go
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to the houses of the boomer generation, you're going to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: see One, a bunch of stuff from the mid-century to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the current day. And two, a bunch of the stuff
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you see is going to be very durable.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Right. The stuff is very well built for the most part.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: This is like a version of mass production that still
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: had some degree of quality control, it would seem. Also,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: you know, boomers were it's almost like the luxury of
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: having this much stuff can kind of become a hobby
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: in and of itself, a.k.a.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Collecting. Uh, I am guilty of this.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: I am not a boomer, but I love collecting trinkets
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: and various things, musical equipment, and, uh, of course records. Um,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: so you're going to often in these types of estate sales,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: see massive amounts of books and, uh, and vinyl records
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: and sure.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and party stuff because these folks were, it
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: was much more common in their generation. to have a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: bunch of people over at your house and to entertain, right,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to have a dinner party.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Right, you might have different sets of china for various
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: types of dinner parties, or you have the fancy silver,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: the kind that's just for, like, a smaller, you know,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: intimate gathering.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: My mother, very much of this era, like, has, you know,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: definitely has a chipper robe that was stuffed full of
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: these kinds of things. Cocktail carts, things like that.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: We also, I think it's crucial that we point out
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: this concept for a lot of folks, this is a
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: generational reaction to the scarcity of the Great Depression. And
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you see this scarcity or this anxiety about not having
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: enough writ large in so many other countries where there's
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: been a huge industrial shift. So the idea of having
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: stuff meant that you would never have to be like
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: your ancestors or your parents who grew up in the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: horrors of the Great Depression. Too long, didn't read, as
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Ames says. Isn't that funny, though, Ben?
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: It seems like you would maybe learn some.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Lessons from the Great Depression, and instead of just buying
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: and collecting all the crap, you might be a little
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: more frugal. But it is funny how people react differently
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: to different kinds of traumas.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were nesting. They were seeking material security, right?
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And again, TLDR, as Ames says, boomers love stuff. They
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: have a lot of it. So that's why at any
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: given estate sale, you can find collections of quite esoteric things,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: colored glass, vintage clothing, records that are sealed in their
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: original packaging, which I know you and I both love,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the china, the silver. And this is something I was
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: not aware of. I'm not the demographic. A Christmas room.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know about that.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I guess I understand sort of like Elvis had like
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: the jungle room, you know, I guess there are folks
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: that kept a year round Christmas room. But either way,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: whether you had a Christmas room or not, a lot
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: of these folks like my mother had just piles of
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: decorations for every season, the kind so many they would
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: have to go in their own color coded bins.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: There we go. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And Experts have taken the calling this tsunami of boomer
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to millennial inheritance. Yes, just so. They've started calling it
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the great stuff transfer. It's a conscious call back to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the great wealth transfer from the so-called silent generation to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the boomers. Boomers will keep it. Naturally, the youths and
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the sort of youths of today typically don't have as
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: much space nor as much of a desire for that
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: sheer wealth. a flood of stuff, of junk, of tchotchkes.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: That's why the estate sale happens, because God forbid your
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: parent passes away or your great aunts or what have you,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: God forbid they pass away, and then you are left
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: to figure out what to do with all of their stuff.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of younger generations don't want all that stuff.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: And it's also like for me, for example, there's definitely
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: some of my mom's stuff that I'm going to keep
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: in certain pieces that I'm looking forward to finding. I
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: ended up with it all in storage because after she
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: had passed away, her house, I was able to keep
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: it furnished and largely untouched. I was renting it to
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: a family friend. But it was sadly destroyed by Hurricane Helene.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: And so I then was great, lucky enough to have
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: insurance pay for this professional packing company to salvage everything
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: that was salvageable, pack it all up. I've got like
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: a manifest, like an inventory. So when I actually do
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: go through it, it's going to be. not super hard
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: because I'll have like, you know, lists of the contents
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: of each particular box. But for me, a big part
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: of the issue is I love stuff and I do
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: have room, but I have plenty of my own stuff
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: taking up that room.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It's a difference in style.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so. It's a difference in aesthetic. It's
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a difference in prioritization. Younger generations have found estate sales
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: useful for several, through several fronts. One of the big
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: ones is what we call upcycling. That's where instead of
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: buying something new that'll zip, zap, and zing until it breaks,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you are practicing more sustainable consumption by getting higher quality
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: items that have been kept and cared for for decades.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Then you have, of course, the idea of tick-top shop
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: style fair. You get unique decor for your decorations at
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: a much more affordable price than you would get if
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you went to like a fancy anthropology or a designer boutique.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Well, and mid-century furniture is mega, mega hot and sought
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: after and, you know, quite expensive.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then this is the reason we're kind of
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: talking about the blind box comparison earlier. Because every estate
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: sale is its own creature, you will always have the
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: possibility of winning the lottery. You may find a diamond
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: in the rough. You may find something that is a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: once in a lifetime treasure. It's something you can keep
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and pass down to your later descendants in even this,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: an increasingly unaffordable world. Now, we do have to point
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: out Real quick, folks, because a lot of estate sales
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: are run by professional third-party companies, they are very good
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: at identifying those diamonds in the rough.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: So typically they know you're not going to like necessarily
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: get an amazing deal on that.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: But that's also kind of just the product of the
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: information age that we live in.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: It used to be like early days of eBay.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: You might stumble across a thing and get like a
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: mega deal on something someone didn't know what they had.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: But that's just not as much the case anymore because
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: things are so easily Googleable and cross-referenceable.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And, you know, you're going to most often than not,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: people know what they have.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there is a secondary industry here. So we
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: mentioned folks who might be working for film or production.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: We mentioned very specific collectors and hobbyists. There's another group
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: of people, the resellers. These are the folks who go
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: in and run the margins, right? They know a lamp
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: is being sold for price X, and they can go
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: right to an online shop that they run and sell
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: it at a, with a vigorous, right. With a profit.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Or they might even already have a client, like.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: A buyer that they know, you know, that's the case
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: with like fancy watches, for example, like folks are going
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: to buy something knowing they can sell it to a
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: particular customer right away.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And this is huge for platforms like eBay or Depop
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: or whatnot. Tons of people are eager to make a career.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Flipping used stuff. It starts as a side hustle, but
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: it's a it can be quite a lucrative full time
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: gig if you if you're on point and if you're
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: willing to invest the time.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Generally.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: The market sees these resellers as a positive for the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: estate sale industry because the goal is to get rid
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of everything in the house, right? And ultimately, if you're
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the company and your only job is to liquidate everything,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: get your percentage and give the rest to the surviving
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: family members.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Why would you care.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: If somebody triples the price and slaps it on eBay?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Well, but you're obviously also going to be looking for
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: hopefully selling those higher priced items to individuals on day one,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: you know, who are going to pay top dollar for it,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: whereas a reseller might be looking to get a little
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: bit better deal so they can improve their margins and
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: often a better deal than they're going to find on
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: day one. So that also requires a little bit of patience.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Like there was, for example, at that Kudzu place, Um,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: there was this really cool coffee table that I really
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: liked and I just, it was brand new in the
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: store day one. And I asked them if they would
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: cut me a deal on it and very similar rules.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. They would not.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: That was what it was. And they said to check back.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: And so I would check back periodically and it was
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: still there. They still wouldn't cut me a deal. Uh,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: and then I checked back finally in one day and
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: it was gone. So, uh, that's sort of how it works.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: If it had been around maybe a couple of weeks longer,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: they might've, they might've budged.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: How often do you go to Kudzu, man?
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Uh, you know, when I'm, You know, go into the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: market over there. I'll pop by sometime.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: There's a really cool DeKalb Farmer's Market here that has
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: all kinds of amazing, like, international foods and stuff like that.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And it's right down the street from Kudzu. But I
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: quite like it. It's a fun place because Kudzu is
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: neat because it is. There's a couple of places in
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Atlanta like this where it's sort of like one giant shop,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: but it's comprised of lots of different individual sellers.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Lots of different stalls, like a swap meet. It's a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: flea market. And don't sleep on First Oriental if you
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: find yourself in the neighborhood, folks. They're one of my
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: favorite Asian grocery stores.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Nice. I know the one. Yeah, right by Pinup's. Yes,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: which is a different kind of establishment.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So there is a reputation that some of the resellers
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: have in the industry that they're a little pushy when
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: they're asking for the deals. Because as you pointed out,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: they want to increase their own profit margin by This
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: leads folks like Business Insider to say the career is
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: not for the faint of heart. Not everybody is cut
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: out for estate sale shopping. You can get an amazing deal.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: You can make a killer find. But to do that,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you are forensically examining the traces of another person's life,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: their photos, their old bed sheets, a basement that might
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of cans, homemade cans or jars of beans.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of dendocrinology, right? When you learn about
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a tree by studying the pattern of its rings, you're making,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you're conducting a kind of dendocrinology on a person that
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you will never meet.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: For sure, Ben.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: And also, like, it's important to remember, and I think
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: anybody that lives this life would tell you, they're not
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: going to make typically you know, their month's rent selling
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: one item. It's going to be a numbers game where
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: they're making a little bit on a lot and they
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: go to a lot of these things and they, you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: are almost dealing in volume unless you're just a really
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: bespoke particular type of like literally forensic picker, you know?
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's grind time for a lot of these folks.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: We also want to, as we get closer to wrapping up,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: we got to shout out modernretail.com. modernretail.com talks about two people,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Sean Lane and Clay Mormon. Mormon's also a lamp designer,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and they have started using estate sales to source inventory
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: for a content series they call Will It Lamp? This
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: launched in November of 2024.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Will it lamp?
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: So basically, they take all sorts of strange things they
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: can find and try to turn them into light fixtures,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: like a bowling ball or a cutting board. Can we
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: make it a lamp? So that means there's space for
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: creativity in this industry as well. That's the kind of
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: upcycling I dig.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: And funny thing is at some of these shops, there's
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: another one that I'm totally forgetting the name of here
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: in Atlanta that's even bigger than Kudzu.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: You will even find upcycled items for sale. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: There's a crossover.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably fresh from an estate sale. And we do
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: know that estate sales have a- Motherlode. Motherlode, that's the one.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: We do know that estate sales have a huge future,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: at least here in the US. As of 2023, the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: industry contributed roughly, get this folks, 9.8 billion to the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: US GDP. And that's coming to us straight from the
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Department of Commerce. Overall- the industry is valued at 16
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: billion fellow ridiculous historians.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and according to the website auctionwriter.com, an estimated 32
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: million U.S. baby boomer estates are expected to transfer at
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: least $ 68 trillion in assets by the year 2045, which
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: means that the golden age of estate sales has barely begun.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Has not yet begun to peak. As Dennis Reynolds was
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: wont to say, folks, we wish you the best in
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: checking these things out. Please just be respectful, because as
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: we said, estate sales are sometimes a consequence of not
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: great life events.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And for God's sakes, pee before you go.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And for God's sakes, pee before you go. Have fun.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Be careful. And hopefully you get a good deal. Big,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Big
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: thanks to our research associate, Ames, who has just been
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: knocking it out of the park.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100%. Huge thanks to A.J.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Bahamas-Jacobs, the puzzler, and a tepid how do you do
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: to Jonathan Strickland, the quizster.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I think we're off mic for this, but Noel, my
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: buddy Simon goes to estate sales so often. that he
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: has regulars like people he sees at these various sales
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and he has a nemesis dude a guy named donovan
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: who apparently snipes all the board games first.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Thing that's that's so like a donovan so.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Shout out to donovan shout out to alex williams who
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: composed this slap and bop.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Ah yeah and huge thanks to you ben this is
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: fun we'll see you next time folks
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.