We’ll call her Icandy.
The widow, in her 90s, recently had moved from her home in Desert Hot Springs into assisted living. Ted and Eric Zepeda were preparing the home’s contents for the estate sale they would conduct before the house was sold. As owners of Retro Etcetera, a local estate liquidation company, they had seen some unusual items in their line of work, but Icandy’s collection was a first.
“I’m not exaggerating even a little when I say she had 10,000 or more naked pictures of herself,” Eric says. “They were on the walls, they were in every cupboard, every closet, they were in the bathroom, in the garage … You’d open the kitchen drawer to get a pen, and there would be a nudie photo. It was crazy.”
The Zepedas, a married couple, reckon Icandy was in her 70s when most of the photos were taken. They boxed the lot and gave it to Icandy’s caregiver. She laughed, recalling how she would hide all the photos on the walls so her mom could visit. Thing is, Icandy wasn’t demented; she was fully down with this peep show. Taken by her husband, the images featured a woman, Ted says, who “was smiling, who looked joyous.”
You could say the same about the Coachella Valley’s estate liquidation industry. When Retro Etcetera started in 2012, Eric estimates there were maybe 10 such businesses here. Now, he says, there are probably 200. As described in The New York Times, the industry is built on the four Ds: death, divorce, debt, and downsizing. The valley’s robust population of older and part-time residents fuel a high-turnover market and a variety of players. Some, like Retro, whose owners have a background in antique sales and property staging, conduct only estate sales. Others offer more comprehensive services, such Palm Springs Estate Sales, whose owner, Spencer Collins, is also a Realtor with Cal Mutual’s real estate services division. All three owners leveraged their personal interest in estate sale shopping into an enterprise.
Reputable liquidators provide contracts that delineate the scope and terms of the project. Generally, the service cleans the home, organizes, itemizes, and prices its contents, and advertises the on-site sale. The best companies try to donate usable leftovers. Trash is hauled to a landfill, and the empty house is left “broom cleaned.” The client (usually a relative, friend, or executor) gets a final report of what sold, for how much, and a check for the proceeds — minus the estate company’s costs not included in the pre-paid flat fee. In addition, the company takes a percentage of the sale proceeds.
The flat fee reflects how much work is required to conduct a sale. Hoarding situations cost more than well-kept properties with more collectibles and less grandiose furniture. If cleaning and hauling trash is not included, those costs are deducted from the sale’s bottom line. Sale commissions can be as high as 50 percent. Retro’s flat fee ranges from $1,695 to $1,995 and includes cleaning and trash clearance. It won’t divulge its commission. But, Eric says, “If you’re charging 20 percent, you’re not making any money.”
Collins doesn’t charge a flat fee for the estate sale if he has the listing to sell the house. Like most companies, his estate sale commission is a sliding percentage, depending on the scope of the job.
Estate sales professionals are only as competent and transparent as their ethics, experience, and empathy allow. It’s a buyer-beware adventure that can be fraught with fragile emotions, a sense of urgency, and unreasonable expectations. Julie Hall, executive director of the American Society of Estate Liquidators (ASEL), acknowledges that the industry is unregulated, “but not for lack of trying.” ASEL and other organizations, including EstateSales.org and the National Estate Sale Association, try to educate consumers and raise consciousness among prospective regulators. But regulatory standards are difficult to impose because laws vary among states and even counties.
The departing residents or their heirs usually take items they want before engaging an estate sale company. Some clients have never seen the property or its contents. Some who aren’t local hire a company remotely and review items via photos or Zoom. Some want nothing except to clear the house. Conscientious companies sequester items for the client that they believe should not be part of the sale — passports, credit cards, tax info … nudie pics. But “99 percent of the time,” Eric says, “the families have … have taken what they want.”
When a Palm Desert resident died recently, the family flew out from Connecticut to collect possessions and retained Collins to liquidate what was left before returning home. They left him the keys and a contract to sell it, with no intention of seeing the property again.
The son of another deceased homeowner was, as real estate agents like to say, “motivated” to sell. He retained Retro, Eric recalls, and, “We were literally at the house one hour after his mother died.”
Sometimes, per agreement with the client, the on-site sale happens after a pre-sale of certain items the liquidators believe would fetch higher amounts among private collectors within their buyer networks of sports memorabilia, china and crystal, pocket watches …
Experience and expertise inform sale pricing decisions. “This type of job is something you learn on the job,” says Collins, who has taken courses via the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. “The more you do it, the better you get at it.”
In the rare instance when Collins finds an item of high value, he advises the client to put it up for auction, resulting in a fatter check.
If the Zepedas are uncertain how to price something for an estate sale, they consult authorities including WorthPoint and 1stDibs. “It’s not about me knowing the vintage of this, who made it, when it was made, what materials,” Ted explains. “It’s what kind of money [shoppers] are willing to drop.” Collins would agree: “My job is to make sure I sell as much as I can in two days.”
The whole process can be difficult for clients, who might be grieving, surprised, exhausted, or unfamiliar with how to dispose of their property. The best companies understand the inherent vulnerability. “Sometimes families don’t know what they have,” Ted explains. “Sometimes they’re so overwhelmed they just can’t deal with any of it.”
“If you do it right,” according to Eric, it’s an “intimate relationship” that requires sensitivity and constant communication.
“We are always available to bid a job,” Collins says. “There’s always a way for us to help people.” He claims never to have turned down a hoarder situation, “even if it’s all junk. We are in sales.” Retro will demur, Ted says, “if it’s a hot mess” and there are few salable items.
Still, the Zepedas are known for their compassion. In 2023, a family arrived at their elderly relative’s house in Hemet, gave her an hour to pack, then brought her to their home in the Midwest. Later, they called Retro in a panic, claiming nobody would do the sale and that they had very little time to clear the house. The Zepedas agreed to extinguish that dumpster fire.
“It looked like somebody had robbed the house,” Eric says. Then they discovered the owner’s passion, which, as Ted describes, would turn out to be “the star of the sale.”
Actually, it was 1,000 stars. They were spools of thread, all labeled and organized; 300 of them alone were various shades of blue. The Zepedas figured that each spool might fetch a quarter at the on-site sale. Meh. They photographed the whole collection and tapped the huge crafter market by joining Facebook sewing circles. Eric and his aunt FaceTimed with interested parties. “That’s all we did for three days.”
They sold 472 spools in the online pre-sale for $1,117. The rest were liquidated after they reclaimed the home. Retro made a pittance because of the arduous cleaning and hefty junk-hauler fees. But thanks to thread, the family got a meaningful check.
Talk about a niche market. In one house, the Zepedas found thousands of bread clips — the little notched plastic tabs that keep bread bags closed. They were all over the place, in different drawers. Eric surmises the owner used them for crafting. “We really try not to throw anything away. … We figure if she had them, maybe somebody else will buy them.” Indeed, somebody did.
Few clients will mourn the loss of bread clips, or dispute their value, but other things with greater sentimental weight or monetary cost can disappoint. Some clients, as Collins notes, “are upset because you didn’t get the price they thought something was worth.” Furniture is a prime candidate.
“When we first started,” Ted recalls, “you could sell furniture for good money. But even furniture in good shape today is almost impossible to move because of other factors.” Area demographics and competitors, such as Facebook marketplace, where you find free furnishings, are key. “How do you compete with free?”
Collins refers to most furniture as “granny goods.” There’s little market for your forebear’s furnishings unless it’s a midcentury modern tulip chair.
The furniture market is saturated, explains Hall, because Depression-era people and baby boomers are dying and downsizing, and “Gen Xers, millennials, and Gen Z, are not into antiques.” They live in smaller spaces, and they don’t entertain as much as older generations. They consider legacy furniture outdated. Ditto, she says, about certain housewares, acknowledging the discrepancy between what clients think something’s worth and what buyers will pay. A once-prized set of Royal Doulton china might have sold originally for $2,500, but most liquidation shoppers today will shell out only a couple hundred.
Estate sale items carry price tags, but liquidators will negotiate. “For stuff that’s really hard to sell, any offer is a good offer,” Collins says. “What doesn’t sell is going to donation, so I’d rather get the family something for it than just giving it away for the tax write-off.” If the unsold furniture Retro has advertised for free doesn’t move, it goes to the dump. “It breaks your heart,” Eric says.
Charities don’t accept furniture as much as they used to. The valley’s abundant consignment shops, Collins notes, have space and time to sell it, but they don’t collect stuff. And some attract a different kind of shopper — decorators and designers uninterested in granny goods — from those at estate sales.
Clients often ask how much money the sale will make, and good companies always decline to estimate. They can’t anticipate what shoppers seek, what they will pay, or complications. In 2019, the Zepedas planned a sale at a house near the route of the Tour de Palm Springs bike event after confirming with tour managers that it wouldn’t conflict with bike traffic. But the day before the sale, the route changed, and the tour closed the street where the house was located. Hardly any shoppers came.
In contrast, Retro did well during the COVID-19 pandemic because estate sales were deemed an essential service (houses had to get sold and estates settled), and people had limited entertainment options. Those sales were conducted by appointment only. Everyone was masked and hand-sanitized, and temperatures were taken. “It was a lot of work,” Eric recalls, but nobody got sick.
Estate sale procedures vary. The best companies ensure sufficient staff to monitor for theft and to facilitate swift checkout. “I’ve been in the retail business for 40 years,” Eric says. “If people wanna shoplift, they’re gonna shoplift. … You just have to make it as hard as possible.”
Sometimes bags are prohibited or must be checked at the door. Smaller items might be locked or grouped together under the watchful eye of a staffer. There might be restrictions on how you can pay (always with cash, sometimes with checks, credit cards, and/or Zelle). Prices generally drop toward the end of a sale and if shoppers are
buying a lot of stuff or spending a ton. Buyers of large items usually have a day or two to retrieve them after their purchase.
Collins estimates that half the shoppers are online resellers. A lot of retirees shop for recreation. “People get to know you,” Collins says. “You meet so many different characters.” But not like the “characters” portrayed on TV, according to a shopper friend of Collins who called Storage Wars shoppers “embellished social acting.” “I’m not out there looking for combat,” he announces, “I’m just out there to buy Beanie Babies. … There’s a saying: You’re either a buyer or a crier.”
Beanie Baby guy used to work as a contractor. One day he bid on a flooring job at a home set to be sold after its estate sale, which was underway when he arrived. In a room that was closed to shoppers, he lifted a rug to find the outline of a body that seemingly decomposed there during the Jurassic period. “The pH acidity of the body had etched at least 3/16 of an inch, if not more, into the floor in the shape of a human,” he recalls. “I didn’t do the job.”
An average estate sale draws maybe 100 shoppers, a doorbuster might have 600. The numbers rise with the degree of fame of the homeowner. In 2021, Collins estimates, there were 1,000 people at his Trini Lopez estate sale in the Vista Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs. Although most of the valuable and memorable contents had been collected by the Lopez family, shoppers still spent about $8,000 on a portrait of the singer, a piano, guitars, signed photos of other celebrities, and a collection of Beatles boots.
Retro Etcetera handled the Palm Springs estate sale for the family of voice actor Elmer “Len” Dresslar Jr., who was the “ho, ho, ho” voice of the Jolly Green Giant in commercials for packaged vegetables. The home’s contents included a life-size statue of the leggy vegan, covered in green felt. The family’s reserve price of $750 went unmet. Today, perhaps, it’s guarding the tool bench in his daughter’s garage.
The most money Collins ever got for a single sale item was about $15,000 for the shell of a 1967 Corvette. Vehicles, especially those in working order, are rare at estate sales, but Retro once tallied $65,000 for the estate of a Yucca Valley dentist, thanks to two cars, an RV, and medical equipment.
The estates of medical professionals sometimes yield other tools of their trade — synthetic skulls and spines, and specimens of uncertain origin. Then there are the tools of the exterior body trade. Virtually every estate liquidator has found adult sex toys and pornography. When Collins found a collection of child porn, he didn’t even ask the client before he destroyed it. “The criminal was dead,” he rationalizes, “and the family doesn’t need to be aware of it.”
“It’s soup to nuts in terms of adult private entertainment,” says Beanie Baby guy, who sometimes helps Collins organize a sale. “You see a lot of bondage chains, eye hooks off the ceiling, and photos. … Living in the valley, there’s a different lifestyle for many people, as you know, and they’re free to be themselves. … I’m never shocked. And I try not to judge.”
Sex toys, of course, aren’t typically included in an estate sale. “We have families coming, so we can’t have a dildo selection out in public view,” Ted offers. But Retro does capitalize on that lusty market, buying the concupiscent collectibles themselves, and renting space every couple of years to conduct a big, adults-only sale.
And, no, we don’t know when the next one is.
How to Choose an Estate Sale Company
1 / Seek references from friends, neighborhood/community/eldercare associations, probate professionals, and the online directories of the American Society of Estate Liquidators (aselonline.com) and the National Estate Sales Association (nesa-usa.com). Many reputable companies are not members of ASEL or NESA, but if they claim membership, verify it.
2 / Interview three companies for a sense of partnership, not just expedience.
3 / Ensure the companies you consider have a business license, are bonded and insured, and offer contracts with explicit terms.
4 / Ask how the sale will be advertised. Good companies market in many ways: estatesales.net and estatesales.org, email, social media.
5 / Ask how the sale will be staffed. You don’t want shoppers waiting in an endless checkout line because there are too few workers for the size and contents of your property.
6 / Set your expectations in neutral: Don’t ask for an estimate of how much money your sale is likely to bring, and be wary if an outfit offers one.
Dealing With an HOA
The Coachella Valley is rife with homeowners associations, most of which prohibit or restrict commercial activity, including estate sales. Some liquidators do conduct sales in an HOA, but the flat fee generally is higher because they must schedule shopping appointments for individuals or small groups, and achieving a sufficient number requires more than the standard two- or three-day sale — appointment shopping sales can take weeks to complete. Few liquidation companies rent off-site space to stage sales, as transport costs often outweigh the value of the moved items.
