Please reach out to us if you cannot find an answer to your question.
We understand that holding an estate sale, a moving sale or a liquidation sale is often difficult, stressful and overwhelming. There are often emotional ties to the items that will be in the sale and making it hard to choose to release them via a sale. We know you have questions. Please take a moment to read these frequently asked questions so you are aware of and familiar with how Nifty Groovy sales are conducted and what to expect to give you more peace of mind in choosing to utilize a sale option. If you have other questions that are not in our FAQ, please contact us online or give us a call Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If we are with a customer when you call, please leave a message with your name, phone number and question so we can return your call promptly.
We appreciate your understanding of these guidelines, which are here to ensure a respectful and enjoyable experience for everyone. Now, let’s take a look at some of our most frequently asked questions for our customers who hire us to hold a sale.
An estate sale generally is a sale of one or more family members private home furnishings and goods. We honor and are committed to respecting and handling the possessions of the estate with care and respect, recognizing that often the items for sale represent the life, livelihood, hard work, hobbies and history of the owners of the estate.
A moving sale is similar to an estate sale in that it generally involves the furnishings and homegoods of an individual or family who is experiencing any of many life changes where they have decided to sell the items in the sale.
A liquidation sale is most often a sale of a business’ furnishings and objects or inventory from offices, retail stores or other types of inventory and/or fixtures for businesses. A liquidation may occur for many reasons.
While we will discuss this in length during the assessment/consultation our sale preparations and oversight include:
We do not clean house before, during or after a sale. We do not remove existing trash, food or pet waste. We do not run dishwashers or clean refrigerators, stoves or other appliances. We do not wash windows, carpets, or curtains/blinds. We do nor make household repairs. We do not garden or mow lawns. We do not load or move sold items and do not provide delivery of items. We do not remove end-sale furniture or goods except as noted in the contract. We do not pack up end-sale goods except as noted in the contract.
We will need to meet where the sale items and sale will be held. You will need to bring any questions you might have that we have not yet been able to answer to that point for you. If there is a chance that we will sign a contract to carry out the sale, we will need a copy of your legal papers such as power of attorney giving the right to sell said items and in the case of estate sales, a copy of death certificate. You should come with some idea of the timeframe you are hoping to hold the sale. Please note that it takes anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks for our team to inventory, sort, organize and advertise a sale. We also may have prior sale commitments that do not enable us to meet your specific timeframe requests but we will do all we can to accommodate you if possible.
It is also important if the location is in an HOA to be aware of and provide a copy of HOA rules showing the requirements for sales within the community including parking, signage, and way finding. There is nothing worse than us preparing for a sale and then being told we must shut down before your sale can happen.
Should we remove anything from the venue ahead of time?
We ask that you and/or authorized family members do so remove any and all items that you would like to keep PRIOR to our initial consultation. Our assessment is based on what is in the home or venue at the time of the assessment. Additional items to remove:
We contractually require that all items you want to keep be removed before the process of sorting and inventory begins. Once we begin, it becomes problematic and time consuming for us to make adjustments to the sale. We begin inventorying, pricing and photographing. There may be financial fees for removal of items after the process starts.Our experience has been that failure to do so can cause confusion and the risk of items being sold unintentionally even if they are set aside separately. On occasion in the process of organizing sales, we have come across family photographs, documents, and other items of a personal nature. These items we attempt to identify and set aside for the family to determine whether the items need to be removed or discharged in some other manner.
We meet at the venue where the sale will be held so that we can assess the size of the sale and how we will best be able to organize, sort and plan for the sale. We will both ask and answer questions to resolve how the sale will move forward and how it may do so. If agreeable, we will go over the sale contract and cover all fees and charges, services to be rendered and dates and times for the sale.
No. We do not charge for the initial consultation/assessment process. This usually lasts about 30 minutes to an hour and is held at the location where the sale will be sorted, organized and held.
It needs to be relatively clean without leaks, vermin, mold, garbage, bodily fluids or pet feces or other items that are a health hazard or odor problems. Trash and open food products both dry and refrigerated/frozen need to be removed from the house. Refrigerator and freezers need to be emptied. The air condition/heater need to be working and the electricity must remain on throughout the duration of the sale as we will need lights and electricity to show the venue and items best. We suggest that a light cleaning be done prior to our assessment including vacuuming, sweeping floors, mopping, cleaning commodes and sinks and making an attempt to reduce odors. Light fixtures need to have working bulbs.
We use fair market value resale prices for the majority of items in a sale. For items that are collectible, rare or otherwise require additional research and are highly sought after, we price those items according to the results of our research combined with fair market value.
We take a lot of time and effort to price items in a sale appropriately for fair value. Good faith negotiations may be done when an offer is reasonable. Low ball offers are not a good faith negotiation.
This depends on the contract with you, the seller. We may offer some items online ahead of the sale. This generally relates to highly sought after furniture, artworks, jewelry and other collectibles. On occasion we will offer items through live online auctions. We also invite our biggest buyers to attend a pre-sale ahead of the published sale date and time.
We do not allow our clients, their family members or others outside of our company to be at the venue while we are in the sorting, organizing or sale process. This is a decision made from experience. Even though your relations and family members may think that they will not be affected by seeing items sold, there can be unexpected reactions to seeing people handle, haggle, buy, comment upon and remove items out of the venue. Because this sort of situation can quickly tank a sale and cause difficulties for the success of the overall sale, we ask you and your family members and friends to stay out of the home during these processes. Additionally, having people in the space while we are inventorying, sorting, and organizing can cause unexpected difficulties for us to complete the woIfrk we need to do. We are professionals and we know our business. You hire us to do the work and we expect that we will be provided the opportunity to do so.
We will lock and secure doors and windows per all instructions when we depart a sale venue. If there is a home security system, we will set the alarms. During the sale, we have multiple staff members available for oversight. We arrange the sale so that entry and exits are viewable and assist with the flow of traffic and exit sales. We also limit items that visitors are allowed to bring into the venue to shop such as large coats, bags or purses, strollers etc. When possible we also provide cameras throughout the venue to reduce potential difficulties.
We do not sell real estate. While a home or business location may be listed for sale in conjunction with a sale, we do not allow realtors to show the house during a sale or while we are in the process of organizing the sale. We recognize that closing the estate is important but we recommend not listing the house until after the estate sale, liquidation or auction.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.