Hi,
Let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Darlene McClelland. I was raised with Antiques as my parents dealt in the business. I went to school in Connecticut to specialize in appraising antiques and residential contents. I conduct usually 40-50 Estate Sales a year. Yes that means sometimes 2 in a week. If anyone is interested in seeing the referrals that I have received from past clients, I have a whole book of them that I would be happy to show you. We not only do Estate Sales where someone has passed away but we do moving sales as well. I also do Appraisals for Antiques and Residential Contents when I have the time. These are just a couple of my many hats. By request from clients that lived out of State that their parents had passed on that lived in Michigan, I was requested to get my Real Estate License as well so that I could handle all their needs not just part of them. I guess you could call it one stop shopping.. LOL..So yes, I'm a realtor with my license now in holding since are market has gone down hill. My broker however will be glad to assist you with all your realtor needs. With the Estate Sales I have worked in five different counties, Oakland, Wayne, Huron, Washtenaw, and there may be a couple others.. I'm not sure of the counties that some of city's have been in.
My motto is: We work hard for our customers to make them as much money as possible. Of course the more I make for them, the more I make for myself. How? I get paid a percentage of what we bring in. Out of my percentage I pay for all the advertising, newspaper ads, website, photo's etc unless it is a special situation. Classic supplies all the tables, shelves, jewelry cases and what ever we may need to set up. We price everything. We also strive to make it as easy as possible for the families in such a hard time dealing with a death and disposing of their loved ones personal belongings. We ask that the families do not start donating or throwing items away.
We try to sell everything including clothing, magazines, food, matchbooks, postcards, old manuals from cars, old appliance manuals, oil cans, lawn fertilizers etc.
The only thing that the family has to do is take the items they want or we can have a presale for the family.
We will put personal items such as photo's, immigration papers, wills, life insurance policy's etc. that we find that the family may have missed, aside for the family. We take care of the familys belongings with the upmost respect.
One more thing... PLEASE... Don't let another Realtor tell you that the house has to be sold with the furniture and items in them. I always suggest that you list the house 2 days before the estate sale. That gives the Realtor (even if it's not me) time to put it in the multi-list, and not enough time for a lot of Realtors to bring people through while all the items are laid out so we can prevent theft. The GREAT part is, how many open houses can get 1,500 to 5,000 people to go through? Only the estate sale end can do that.. What great exposure to sell your home. Approximately 60%-80% of homes have sold because of someone that came through the estate sale. One of my last closings that I had, I only had a 30 day listing. There have been many of the homes that sold or the purchase agreement was made the same day of the estate sale.
We strive to be the best. I was the first in Michigan to sign up with EstateSales.net years ago. I beleive that I was the first to start emailing for the sales in Michigan. My email list was so extensive that I was accused of spamming. When this became a problem...we solved it... EstateSales.net does all the emailing for me. They host my pictures, keep addresses confidential until I tell them to post it to avoid breaking and enterings, and they are a national Estate Sale sight, so your sale can be viewed by the entire United States.
"Thank You" for taking time to read this. If you have any questions, please feel free to call me anytime.
"Thank You" to all the customers that come to the sales and the past and future clients to be.
Sincerely,
Darlene McClelland 586-295-4695
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