The estate sale and removals research begins…
I feel like 95% of my brain space in regards to moving involves what to do with our stuff. (The other 5% is, like, jobs, schools, and learning to drive on the other side of the road.)
So I think I’m actually excited to get the details figured out and move on to other things. The more we get into this move, the more I’m realizing how Type A and detail-oriented I am. (I guess you can still discover new things about yourself . . . that have probably been obvious to everyone else for years.)
First, I submitted my info on a moving website, one of those marketplaces that sells your info to the moving companies and then a bunch of them contact you. Mostly I got emails and text messages, but one company called me directly. I spoke to him about our plans - that we want to take a few boxes, maybe some furniture depending on price, and keep it definitely under $10K in shipping costs, probably closer to $5K.
He said that for a dresser, two nightstands, two side chairs, 40ish regular sized boxes and several picture boxes for artwork, we’d be looking at around 300 cubic feet, which is about the size of a cargo van. This feels like a reasonable amount of stuff to bring - we can keep a few pieces of furniture that we like and have plenty of space for clothes and toiletries, paperwork and mementos, all the kid stuff, and a few kitchen goods.
So far I’ve gotten a few removals quotes:
-$6,100, packing not included (this was the super helpful first company that called me)
-$6,500, packing included (this was one of the largest removals companies that I contacted directly to request a quote)
-$5,200, packing included (this was another random company that called me later)
I’m waiting on two more quotes, one said it would be in the $4K-$5K range, so we’ll see where we net out. It definitely pays to shop around! All of these companies are basically doing the same thing, so the difference in price is crazy. A couple of the sales people said it was good to get quotes and lock in a contract now, because the prices go up the closer to the move, especially when things get busier in the spring. I felt kind of validated because maybe it seems too early, doing this nine months before our move date, but actually I’m being super smart and organized. Hurray!
But what to do with the stuff we aren’t bringing?
My husband is all about a big garage sale. But if you’ve ever done a garage sale you know what a pain it is, organizing all your stuff and putting little prices on it and hauling it outside and setting up your driveway store. Then hauling everything back in again before it rains. And when I look around at all the rooms, the closets, the garage, the basement, the yard, I feel like we’d end up selling a few things and bringing the rest to Goodwill or throwing it away because we’d run out of time and patience.
So I called a couple of estate sale companies. Here’s the deal - these companies come into your house (ideally after you’ve moved out) and go through all your stuff, set it up and price it for sale. They post the sale to their networks and have a weekend open house where everyone walks through and buys the discarded remnants of your life. Both companies said selling a house full of stuff tends to yield between $10K-$20K depending on the quality of the items. They also do an initial walk-through to evaluate your home and make sure you’ve got enough to be worth taking on. And both companies book up months in advance, so again, it was well worth contacting them early, especially since summer is their busy time too.
The first company charges a 50% commission. They also work with a cleanup crew that will take your unsold things away (for an extra fee) and clean your house (for an extra fee). The second company charges a 35% commission but does not handle any of the after-sale activities. They do organize everything so you’ve got it ready to donate, toss or re-home in another way. I’m leaning toward the second option since a 35% cut obviously sounds waaaay better than 50%.
One of the big snags with the second company is that they take a couple of weeks to organize and do the sale. I want to minimize disruption for our little kids as much as possible, and originally I was thinking we’d just take them to an Airbnb for a long weekend while we get all this sorted, but now that seems naive. But I don’t want to hang out at an Airbnb for a month in limbo while all this is going on either, so maybe it’s best we just head straight for England and try to manage everything from afar?
Here’s the timeline in my head now:
-Early May: List the house for sale while we still live there. Ask for an Aug 1 closing (or we rent back from the buyers if they want to close sooner). We go somewhere for the weekend while our realtor does the open house, hopefully we get a quick sale.
-Mid-June - School finishes, kids do summer camp through the rest of the month, everything is normal.
-Early July - The removals company picks up the stuff that we’re shipping, we pack our suitcases and move to England. (I’m also thinking if I work the first week in July, we should get to keep our health insurance through the month, and it’s a holiday week so it’ll be quiet at work anyways.)
-Mid-July - The estate sale company sells our household goods.
-End of July - One of us flies back from England for a couple of days to clean out the rest of our stuff and get the house ready to hand over to the buyers.
It’s not ideal to have to fly over and fly back, but it seems like maybe the best/only way. Plus, my husband’s business is still going to be based in the States, so he could tie a flight to work and multi-task. I also kind of like the idea of having a built-in backup (Like, say, if we forget to do something with our bank and have to talk to someone in person, we know one of us will be back in the States in just a couple weeks.) I don’t love the idea of solo-parenting in a brand-new place for a week but whaddayagonnado.
I’m just really glad to be figuring all this out now. And, weirdly, all these little details are making me excited about the move, instead of feeling overwhelmed or stressed like I expected. Maybe it’s just after waiting for so long, it’s exciting to actually feel like we’re making progress.
