Estate Sale Company
Originally published Aug 9, 2026 — Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast (guest: Braden)
Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast (guest: Braden) · Make Money Selling Stuff People Want Gone ↗
You contract with homeowners, or their families, to liquidate the entire contents of a house, pricing and selling everything from furniture to collectibles over a weekend sale, then taking a percentage of what sells. Most estate sales happen because a house is about to go on the market and the family needs the contents cleared out fast.
Braden started with almost no money, just tape, a price gun, and folding tables, and says he made about $6,000 profit in his very first week. The company keeps a cut of total sales (Braden mentioned passing 60% of proceeds back to the client, keeping the rest), and pricing is typically a tiered discount over a three-day sale: full price day one, 20-25% off day two, half off day three. He also cited an outside estimate of $124 trillion in wealth transfer expected in the US over the next 20 years as baby boomers age, a big part of it tied to real estate and home contents changing hands.
Someone comfortable with sales, organizing, and pricing hundreds of small items, who doesn't mind physical, on-site weekend work and can build relationships with real estate agents for referrals.
This is one of the more detailed, credible accounts in the database. Braden shares real numbers as his business grew: roughly $10,000-15,000 per weekend sale early on, scaling to a 32,000-square-foot warehouse doing about $25,000 a week within the first year, and grossing $30,000-40,000 a month by the time he stepped back from day-to-day work. He also mentions the not-so-great side of the industry, some competitors didn't price items fairly or ran all-cash operations that looked shady, which is useful context for what separates a good operator from a bad one. Worth noting this is a single market's experience (a smaller Arkansas metro with 5-10 estate sales a week and light competition at the time); a saturated, larger city could look different. There's also a franchise route (Braden mentioned $50,000-75,000 buy-ins from companies like Caring Transitions) if someone wants instant brand recognition instead of building from zero.