advice on cleaning out and fixing parent's house to sell to help pay for assisted living

[Anonymous]

An ozone generator can get rid of the smoke odor.

[Anonymous]

Have you talked to a financial advisor? Selling the house isn’t always the smartest thing to do. If you can rent or STR it to generate income, sometimes that’s better. It can be inherited on a stepped up basis for one thing.

[Anonymous]

I would only do it when she's ready. Call an estate sale company. Or, you have to sell yourself or find a dealer to buy it from you. Pull out the carpet, repaint with a good primer first.

[Anonymous]

Estate sales companies make money for themselves, not you. It may be worth it for you to get it done quickly and easily, but understand that you will be paying them.

Sell the house as-is after it's emptied and cleaned.

[Anonymous]

OP, my mom has an apartment, but maybe Facebook marketplace to sell? Antique dealers tell me nobody would be interested in the pieces I have

[Anonymous]

There is no way to do this easily and maximizing profit.

If you want to sell these pieces, take pictures and post on FB Marketplace. Most of the pieces will not sell and others can take multiple months. If the pieces are heavy like furniture then you are limited to pick up only which makes it even less likely to sell.

But honestly, the fact that it smells like smoke will reduce the appeal even more. I think you have to come to terms that not only are you not going to make money, you are going to pay thousands for a junk hauler to clear out the house.

(Just sold my mom's house and had to pay $7000 to clear it out. I just didn't have the time or bandwith to deal with trying to sell or donate.)

[Anonymous]

Can you therapeutically lie to your mom and just tell her stuff sold for good money, but meanwhile just have GotJunk pick it all up? Unless she has something really unique, nobody wants a 150 year old dresser and china cabinet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you therapeutically lie to your mom and just tell her stuff sold for good money, but meanwhile just have GotJunk pick it all up? Unless she has something really unique, nobody wants a 150 year old dresser and china cabinet.

OP here, she was an antique dealer for years and kept the best stuff for herself. She's showed me online auctions, and it seems like stuff goes for more than I would have expected it to. I'm unclear how much prep work we would have to take on for this, but there absolutely is a market for 150 year old dressers and China cabinets.

[Anonymous]

If your mom was in the business, then your family would know way more about the best way to do this than the random people on this site.

I paid $7000 for someone to haul all my mom’s “antiques” to the trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Has anyone worked with an auction company that does online auctions for antiques? This is how my mom purchased most of her recent acquisitions, hoping we may be able to do the same.

Quinn’s in Falls Church

[Anonymous]

OP, you may need to convince us that money is needed right now. I assume you know her complete financial picture?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you therapeutically lie to your mom and just tell her stuff sold for good money, but meanwhile just have GotJunk pick it all up? Unless she has something really unique, nobody wants a 150 year old dresser and china cabinet.

OP here, she was an antique dealer for years and kept the best stuff for herself. She's showed me online auctions, and it seems like stuff goes for more than I would have expected it to. I'm unclear how much prep work we would have to take on for this, but there absolutely is a market for 150 year old dressers and China cabinets.

LOL. OK, OP. So the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

[Anonymous]

I sold a rental house in Jan 2025 that had had a renter who smoked inside for 40 years. The house was built in 1917.

The realtor and I both knew the house might be a tear down due to the age. Realtor said I needed to remediate the smoke in the house such that a realtor and potential buyer could walk in the house and not gag. Realtor said not to do anything else.

I had my property manager find some guys who could do the work.

Realtor said to remove all soft goods: carpeting and window treatments. He said to paint all wood, walls, and ceiling with kilz primer and then to paint everything.

Property manager told me in the year round rental houses and air bnb's that you have the painter spray the kilz primer through the spray gun on wood floors, trim, walls and ceilings. After it dries you spray the wood floors, trim, wall and ceiling with a semi gloss paint all one color sprayed through the paint gun.

Cost was: $5000 to the guys to do the work which included tear out of window treatments and carpeting and haul to the dump

Cover windows

Use paint sprayer to spray kilz primer on wood floors, trim, walls and ceiling.

Use paint sprayer to spray white semi gloss paint on wood floors, trim walls and ceiling.

$5000 to the work guys
$500 (10%) to my property management company to find the work guys

House was around 1000-1200 square foot with one bathroom, kitchen, 2 bedrooms.
Entire interior was painted.

My first 2 real estate purchase deals fell through. First two guys were going to flip the house. However, there was too much wrong in the inspection reports.

Third deal went through. Third guy was going to tear down the house and put in 6 air bnbs.

House sold for $700,000 as a tear down.

Talk to 3 realtors and see what they say.

Realtors can give you local contacts for estate auction houses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you therapeutically lie to your mom and just tell her stuff sold for good money, but meanwhile just have GotJunk pick it all up? Unless she has something really unique, nobody wants a 150 year old dresser and china cabinet.

OP here, she was an antique dealer for years and kept the best stuff for herself. She's showed me online auctions, and it seems like stuff goes for more than I would have expected it to. I'm unclear how much prep work we would have to take on for this, but there absolutely is a market for 150 year old dressers and China cabinets.

LOL. OK, OP. So the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Lol, I know, I know. Except she kept complaining about getting outbid on random old crap (I mean lovely antiques) online that I would never want!

[Anonymous]

Caring transitions seems like a good option