Sometimes called a Tag Sale, an estate sale is a process of liquidating the belongings of a family’s estate. These sales normally occur through life transitions. Whether it be downsizing, relocating, separation or the passing of a loved one, Southern Country will respect your privacy and honor your requests and decisions throughout the entire sale. To determine if its the right choice for you, contact us and we will schedule a free in-home consultation. This gives us the opportunity to meet and assess the overall value of your contents. We will then determine if an estate sale is in your best interest.

Our free consultation is a meet and greet session. We will join you in your home for a walk-through to photograph and evaluate the contents of your estate. We will provide you an overview of our services along with our fees and establish a timeline to execute the sale.

We understand this can be a sensitive time for your family. We will honor and respect your family’s legacy and answer any questions or requests that you may have during this time.

NOTE: Security, Safety and protecting your family Heirlooms is paramount to having a successful estate sale. These items will be discussed after the walk-through.

For more information on our services click here.

Passing of a loved one:

We ask that all legal documents and authorities are in place.
As the appointed Executor or Administrator of the estate, we must ensure that you have the legal authority to sell any or all items of the estate.
Items that are flagged as heirlooms or keepsake must be tagged “Not For Sale” prior to the consultation and moved from the property prior to Setup. This will help provide a more accurate assessment of your estate during our walk through.

Divorce, Separation or Bankruptcy:

We ask that you consult your legal counsel prior to calling us.
Any liens or encumbrances are the sole responsibility of the home owners.

Moving and Downsizing:

There are no legal or administrative authority requirements for moving or downsizing. Call us immediately and we will arrange a free consultation.

Prior to Setup and Staging:

We ask that all PII (Personal Identifiable Information) in both soft and hard-copy form be removed from the estate prior to the Sale date.
For tips on how to identify and tag your personal information, visit our Security Policy.
We ask that all utilities remain on throughout the entire sale along with scheduled dates for recycle and disposal services.
We will request advance notice for any scheduled maintenance and showings of the home prior to Setup and Staging.

Absolutely. We can easily communicate via email, text messaging, telephone and video conferencing when needed. See our testimonial page for examples of this scenario.

No. We ask that you keep everything regardless of age, function or condition. You never know what treasures people are looking for and will buy. We ask that you please detain from donating items to charities or selling them at a pawn shop or flea market. This will help maximize your profit as we have processes in place that can far exceed any price that they may offer. See our services page for more information on how we conduct fair market pricing when evaluating your items.

We use the following platforms and business relationships to advertise your sale. For detailed information on how we partner with these sources please see our marketing section located on the services page:

Online Platforms:

Online Ads are posted 1 to 3 days prior to the sale date. The ads include Date, time and location of the sale along with a gallery of pictures highlighting the items of your sale. The following platforms are used to advertise your sale:

— Facebook.com

— southeasttexas.com

— southerncountryestatesales.com

Email Distribution Lists:

Customer email lists are sent out 1 to 3 days before the sale. We also have custom distribution lists setup that targets individual buyers, business owners and online vendors when items of high value are included in the sale. (WIP)…

Signage:

Signage is critical to every estate sale. The majority of your items are always sold within your local community and surrounding areas at fair market value. We always research, map and post our signs at the busiest intersections to promote traffic back to your estate.

Please Note: We will always protect your privacy, your personal information and business decisions from everyone attending your sale.

Security is critical to every estate sale we host. Our security policies begins at initial contact with our clients:

Consultation:

We will provide an overview of how we implement our security measures to protect your privacy, identity and items of the estate from theft.

If requested, we can provide online monitoring of the estate 7x24 throughout the entire sale.

Staging Setup and Pricing

By default, we will place all documents that contain PII information under lock and key. These documents will be returned to the client at the closing of the sale.

This also includes items of higher value that may have been missed during your initial search prior to the consultation. If found, these items will be appraised and brought to your attention prior to the Sale Date. You can then determine if you want to keep or add them to the sale.

We will group these items into the following categories and then consult with the client on how they would like to dispose of them:

Salable Items:

Items of low value: Common household items that does not sell can be donated or returned to the client.
Items of High Value: During setup, we often find high valued items that may have been missed by the client during their initial search.
These items may include jewelry and collectibles such as coins, stamps, records etc…
These items when found, will be appraised and brought to the attention of the client.
Should the client decide to sell these items to increase his/hers profits, we may use other sales channels to obtain the appraisal price verse the fair market value. To learn more about Pricing and Fair Market Value click here.

Non-Salable Items:

These items will be recycled through waste management or through the clients local disposal services. These are considered small nonfunctional items that are damaged with little to no value.

It’s much easier for us to conduct a sale if you are not present. Many customers are not comfortable shopping when family members are present. Regardless of how prepared you may think you are for the sale, it can be very hard for family members watch people roam their estate digging for treasures that may have sentimental value. To them, everything has memories associated with it. To shoppers, it’s just another sale. It takes just a couple of comments to really offend someone. We feel it is our job to make this process easier on the family and to eliminate the stress involved with it. This is why we recommend that you not involve yourself during the sale, and let us take care of it for you.

Southern Country operates on a commission that is based on gross sales. There are no hidden charges for you. Additional services are available upon request during our consultation.