What's the Commission?

Income from an estate liquidation is usually a percentage of gross sales. The split between you and the estate sale company is based on several factors. While the commission may be arbitrary at other estate sale companies, at Blue Raven Estate Sales the commission split is directly linked to several factors.

 

Before quoting our commission, we must see your home—the contents, condition, quality, and volume of items. Blue Raven maintains the financial risk in holding a sale as we cover the cost of crew pay, set-up and pricing supplies, advertising, and email promotion. A higher commission for our company may be required to accomplish your goals.

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Your home's contents

When we choose to work with a client, it's based on estimating the profits during the walk-through. We quickly review the quantity and quality of items by eye. Since Blue Raven assumes most of the up-front cost, we need to consider whether there are enough valuables in this home for us to invest in a sale.

 

Low Commission Splits

A lower commission accepted by another estate liquidator may reflect the shortcuts they take in setting up or promoting the sale. The company may not clean, organize, stage, or individually research and price each item. From our experience, this directly leads to lower profits. So, when you believe your liquidation income will be higher due to a higher commission percentage, you are likely earning less in total gross profits—up to 75% less in our experience.

 

When interviewing an estate sale company, ask whether they

• sort and organize the home, moving categories of items so they are staged together

• clean, dust, discard trash, recycle, and distribute donations

• research and individually price all items

• hire enough uniformed staff to provide security and customer service during the sale

• customize the marketing for the unique contents of your home

• pay for advertising to promote the sale

 

Quality of our work

Blue Raven transforms your home into a specialty boutique shop within a few weeks. This presentation requires sorting, staging, and pricing your items with an artistic eye. We are very proud of the attractive way we stage a home’s contents with matching tablecloths and tidy labels. And we've seen through final sale numbers that presentation and quality service lead to higher profits. If your home is presented as a garage sale, you will earn garage sale profits.

 

Higher Commission Splits

Commission rates can increase if the home is dirty or disorganized and it increases the crew time spent on sorting and disposing of low-profit items. Thick dust is expected in the desert where an empty home can become very dirty within 6-8 weeks. Cleaning and organizing (eg packed garages and sheds) are necessary—we see higher profits and on a practical note, the price stickers adhere better.

 

A more subjective reason the commission split may be higher is you have a smaller quantity of items for sale but the investment from our company is relatively similar. Our method of procuring higher profits requires us to set up each home with the same staging and marketing standards.

 

Blue Raven assumes the financial risk of the sale. And because we believe it's good business, we pay

• better hourly rates ($)

• careful presentation and pricing (time)

• customized marketing (service)

• promotion through advertising ($)

• email list and distribution ($)

• liability insurance ($)

• careful accounting of your profits (service)

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Call or email us today to schedule a walk-through of your home!