What is an estate sale?
Estate Sales are aimed at individuals who need to sell most of the items in a home, whether they are moving or a family member has passed away. When hosting an estate sale, the public is invited into the home to purchase most of its contents.
We organize, set up, advertise, price and run the sale for you – so all you have to do is decide what to keep.
Selling off most or part of an estate can be a daunting task.
To help you get started we offer a free, walk-through consultation to assess your personal situation. Before calling us we recommend that you and your family walk through the house and decide what exactly you want to keep and what you want to sell. Don’t throw away anything! Many times what you think is trash is someone else’s treasure.
After we walk through your home and determine your individual requirements, we will recommend options on how to move forward. If you ultimately decide to have an in-home estate sale, our team of professionals will look through the items that you wish to sell and determine their market value. Beyond our personal expertise, we also take the time to research items of value by looking at online pricing and auction results from the databases we subscribe to. In some cases we will also reach out to our network of professionals who specialize in specific items.
To prepare for the sale, Howe Estate Sales organizes your items to create an easy-to-navigate, retail-like experience for estate sale shoppers. After the sale is staged, our resident photographer will move through the home and photograph all of the items for marketing purposes. Once the pictures are taken, we will price all of the items so there is no confusion the day of the sale.
After preparing for the sale, we will invite the public into the areas of your home where the merchandise is available for purchase. Depending on the size of your home, we will strategically place employees in different rooms to answer questions and assist buyers.
In most circumstances, a percentage of the overall sales is retained as a fee for running the estate sale. Consequently, we have an incentive to sell your items for the highest price that the market will bear.
Each estate sale is different.
While many companies may walk in the day of the sale, put a sign on the corner and an ad on a single website, Howe Estate Sales strives to be different by customizing each sale to your specific needs and utilizing our comprehensive marketing plan.
This includes:
Promoting the sale on estate sale industry specific websites which shoppers look at weekly to find sales near them. As gold and platinum members on these websites, our sales appear higher up in searches. They will also send your sale in a mass email to over 30,000 email subscribers in the Los Angeles area.
We will also send our own email blast to our private list of over 3,500 estate sale shoppers who have been to previous Howe Estate Sales, and are eager to come to more sales.
We always take professional-quality pictures of everything for sale in your home and use these pictures when marketing the sale.
We also write a sale description and categorized item list, crafted to attract buyers and collectors of each item for sale.
We promote the sale on social media websites.
Finally, we post large, directional, open-house-type signs on corners of the main intersections around the sale, if permitted by city ordinances.
Who We Are
Parker Howe Co-Founder – Managing Director
Howe Estate Sales, LLC was started by Parker Howe after discovering his passion for antiques and collectables while attending estate sales and visiting antique stores with his parents. Parker ran his first estate sale at the age of seventeen and has since been passionate about estate sales and consignment services. After living in Southern California for his entire life, he moved to study business at Babson College just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. In Boston, he quickly became involved in the unique world of antiques, crystal and china that call New England home. He worked for a local estate sale company where he learned the details of the estate sale business and how the entire industry operates. After graduating, Parker returned back to the Pasadena area where he currently resides. Parker is proud to use the knowledge and experience that he learned in college in the exciting world of estate liquidation.
Call Parker Howe at: (626) 755-8950
Email: parker@howeestatesales.com
John Sheptock Co-Founder – Operations, Photography, IT and Marketing
John graduated from Emerson College, in Boston, Massachusetts, where he majored in Visual and Media Arts. While at Emerson, he studied art history and photography abroad in the Netherlands which pushed his interest to the world of antiques, paintings and historical pieces. For John’s last semester of college, he moved to Los Angeles where he started to work for a production company that specialized in commercials for national brands. This exposure to marketing combined with his interest in art and antiques pushed John to co-found Howe Estate Sales with Parker. As a member of the Howe Estate Sales family, John helps visually stage and merchandise sales and promote them throughout the internet on industry-specific websites. He is also the resident photographer for all of the Howe estate sales.
Current Availability
We are currently working on a large scale project for a client that will take six months or more to complete. While this is ongoing we may be able to host a few sales depending on the quality and scale, but for the most part we will be committed to this project.
If you are interested in having a sale, please feel free to text us pictures and little information about your sale to (626) 755-8950 and we will be happy to offer our assistance, give some advice or refer you to another company who may be a better fit.
As always, we do purchase outright fine china, crystal and sterling silver. If you are interested in selling these items, please let us know.
ACNA Member
We are a proud to be one of over three thousand members of the Antiques & Collectibles National Association (ACNA). Since there is no governing body that issues estate sale company licenses, Howe Estate Sales, LLC became a member of one of the largest and longest running antique dealer trade organizations.
Insurance
We also have a comprehensive liability insurance policy. While homeowners insurance usually covers all aspects of an estate sale, we decided to opt for this policy to give you a greater peace of mind.
CA Dept. of Tax & Fee Administration
To comply with state laws and regulations, Howe Estate Sales, LLC collects sales tax at each and every estate sale. Every month we audit our records and send the percentage of sales tax collected to the state. This means that as a client you do not have to worry about sales tax since we are covering the entire process.
Our service area includes
The entire Los Angeles area including: Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Marino, Altadena, Alhambra, Sierra Madre, San Gabriel, Temple City, La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta-Montrose, Arcadia, Monrovia, Los Angeles, Glendale, Burbank, Toluca Lake, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Hollywood, Silver Lake, West Hollywood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Culver City, West Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Marina Del Ray, Malibu and the surrounding communities. We are also committed to serve our neighbors throughout Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties.