Estates sell, but for less

There are a dozen or so small firms in the metro area that liquidate estates laden with everything from fine furniture and collectibles to junk. Estates are sold through tag sales or auctions, or sometimes a combination of both.

Estates sales have always been fueled by the three D’s — death, divorce and downsizing. But the bad economy has added foreclosure and bankruptcy to the equation in the last year or so. Some people are also trying to raise cash by selling off collections they have been storing for years.

A changing market

Van Wye, who conducts two tag sales a month, said “foreclosures and the need to liquidate” drive about 30 percent of her business these days. High-end appliances and top-of-the-line antique furniture are holding their own, she said. But middling furniture is off by as much as 40 percent, she said.

Gary Russell, who runs Memories Estates with his wife, Maggie, said average antique furniture has dropped in price, but high-end items are holding relatively firm. Costume jewelry sales remain extremely strong, he said.

“There’s been an awful lot of antique furniture dumped on the market the last few years,” Russell said. “Average stuff is down. But top-dollar items still bring top dollar.”

The Russells recently liquidated a high-end Chastain Park estate that contained everything from garden tools priced at a few bucks to fine art in the low thousands. There was high-end 1800s furniture and guns used in the Civil War. The elderly collector who owned the estate had passed away and his family hired the Russells to sell it for a percentage of the proceeds.

Gary Russell said his company expected to handle four major estates from October through late November. A lot of estates crammed with antiques and collectibles are coming on the market, he said, which has been good for his business, even though some prices have dipped.

“If anything, our overall business is up,” Russell said. “Our total sales dollars are up. We have beaten our pre-sale estimate by 15 percent for the last three sales.”

Items at the Chastain Park sale went for a wide variety of prices. More than 100 people showed up at noon on the final day of the sale to bid on remaining items in a daylong auction that, despite the recession, featured spirited bidding by dealers and collectors.

‘High end’ doing fine

Auctioneer Nathan Cagle, who runs Cagle Auction Co. in Jefferson, about 35 miles north of Atlanta, said prices at his regularly scheduled house auctions have declined by as much as 50 percent from two years ago. However, prices have remained relatively firm at auctions held on-site at the estates selling them.

“On-site estate auctions are still doing well,” Cagle said. “The prices are down to about what they were two years ago. But they are still bringing good money.”

Cagle agreed that top-end items, like those he runs though his special gallery auctions around holidays, are doing well.

“That’s where the money is — the high end,” he said. “People who can afford to buy that stuff still seem to have money.”

Before the recession, Cagle said, the bread and butter of his auction business was furniture. But he said he has had to become very selective about the furniture he sells, weighting his house auctions with more collectibles and less furniture.

“Nobody’s building houses, and nobody’s buying furniture for it,” Cagle said.