How to Get Estate Sale Leads: Referrals, Realtors and More

Where estate sale leads actually come from

Almost every estate sale begins with one of a few events: a death, a move into assisted living, a divorce, a downsizing, or a house that has to be sold by a deadline. The family involved has usually never hired an estate sale company and does not know how to compare two. So they do what people do with any unfamiliar service: they ask the person already helping them with the larger problem. That is the realtor listing the house, the attorney handling the estate, the community their parent is moving into, or a friend who went through the same thing last year.

That is the whole lead strategy in one sentence. Estate sale leads come from being the company those people name, and from being visible to the smaller number of families who search on their own. Everything below is a way of doing one or the other. None of it is quick, and none of it is a substitute for running good sales, because a referral that ends badly costs you the referrer as well as the client. The guide to starting an estate sale business covers the foundations; this one assumes you have them and want the phone to ring.

Realtors: the largest single source

A listing agent needs the house empty and clean, on a date, with the least possible drama, and a company that delivers that reliably becomes part of how the agent works. Agents also meet the family early, often before the family has thought about the contents at all, which means a referral from an agent usually arrives before the family has called anyone else.

Approach agents as a colleague, not a salesman. Find the ones who sell older homes in your area, and the brokerages with a strong senior or probate practice. Offer a short conversation about how you work: what you need from the family, how long set-up takes, how you leave the house, and how you keep out of the agent's way. The guide to sequencing an estate sale and a house listing is written for families, and it describes exactly the coordination an agent wants. Then be easy to work with on the first job: return calls the same day, hit the dates you gave, and leave the house broom-clean if you said you would. Agents talk to each other constantly, and the second referral comes from the first agent's office mate.

Do not offer agents money for referrals. Beyond the rules that may govern their side of it, an agent who refers you for a fee will refer whoever pays most next month. What an agent wants is a company that makes them look good in front of their client. Give them that, and keep a short list of the agents who have sent you work so you can thank them in writing when a sale settles.

Attorneys, trust officers and fiduciaries

Probate and elder-law attorneys, trust departments at banks, professional fiduciaries and accountants who handle estates all face the same problem an agent does: a house full of belongings that has to become money and an empty house, with a paper trail that will satisfy a court or a beneficiary. Their referral is worth more than most because the client has often already been told to expect it, and because the estate's attorney may be the one who reviews your contract.

What this audience values is different from what a family values. They want a clean written contract, an itemized settlement statement, prompt payment into the estate's account, and a company that understands it may be dealing with an executor who lives out of state. Our guide for families on an executor's duties with personal property describes the records they are trying to keep; read it, and then make your settlement statement the document that supplies them. A short letter to the probate attorneys in your county, with a sample statement and a copy of your contract enclosed, will get more response than a brochure.

Senior communities, move managers and care professionals

A move into assisted living or memory care empties a house, and the community's admissions or marketing staff hear about it weeks before anyone else. Senior move managers, geriatric care managers, home health agencies and hospice social workers are in the same position. Many of these people keep a list of local services they have found reliable, and being on that list, with a family who came back to say you were kind, is one of the steadiest sources of work in this trade.

Approach with care, because the people you are talking to are protective of their residents and families, and they should be. Offer to give a short talk to residents and their adult children about what an estate sale involves and what to keep; do not sell from the podium. Ask whether the community has a resource list and what it takes to be on it. And understand where you fit: a move manager handles the move and often the sorting, and an estate sale company handles the sale, so you are more useful to a move manager as a partner than as a competitor. The guide to senior move managers and estate sale companies explains the overlap from the family's side.

Every sale you run is marketing for the next one

The most effective advertising an estate sale company has is the sale itself. Your name is on the signs at every corner for three days, on every price tag, and in front of a few hundred people walking through a house in the neighborhood where the next sale will be. Some of those shoppers are the adult children of the people whose houses you will be asked to clear. Neighbors notice a well-run sale on their street, and they notice a badly run one.

Make the sale work for you. Use good signs with your name and a phone number on them, not just an arrow. Collect email addresses at checkout for a mailing list; a large local list is worth more to a family than a slightly lower rate, and families are learning to ask about it. Photograph every room well and publish a listing that comes up when someone searches for sales in your town; the guide to photos and listings that draw buyers covers what to shoot and how to write it. Leave business cards at the checkout with a line about what you do for families, not just for shoppers. And ask every client, at settlement, whether they would mind being a reference and whether they know anyone who is facing the same job. Most of them do.

Listing sites, directories and free lead sources

A minority of families search on their own, and they search for two things: "estate sale companies near me" and, once they have names, the company itself. Being findable for both is cheap and worth doing. A simple website with your service area, your rate structure in general terms, photographs of past sales and a way to contact you does most of the work. A profile in the directories families use does the rest, and a listing of every sale you run is what puts your name in front of the shoppers and neighbors described above.

This site is one of those sources, and it is worth saying plainly what it does. A family describes the estate once, in one form. The site emails the five nearest companies directly, other local companies can see the request too, and the family can close the request in one click whenever they like. For a company, joining is free: free leads and free sale listings, with no per-lead charge, no listing fee and no card needed to join. Your profile carries your own claims about insurance, licensing and years in business, attributed to you and not checked by the site, and families are told to ask for the certificate, so write it accurately. A sale you list here gets its own page, and it appears when a shopper searches by ZIP or city on the browse page.

Answering a lead so it becomes a contract

Whatever the source, a lead is a person in the middle of a hard week who has asked for help and is bracing for the phone to ring. How you respond decides most of it.

1. Respond the same day, and by phone if you have a number. Families call the company that called back. A message that says who you are, that you are sorry for their loss where that applies, and that you would like to see the house, is enough.
2. Listen before you quote. Ask who lived in the house, what the timeline is, whether the family has taken what it wants to keep, and whether a realtor or attorney is involved. Do not talk about your rate until you have seen the house. Our guide to the walk-through describes what the family has been told to expect from you.
3. Offer a walk-through within days, not weeks. A family that has heard from three companies will book with the one that can come Thursday.
4. Leave a written proposal. Rate, minimum, extras, dates, what happens to unsold items, and how and when they are paid. Families are told to compare quotes on exactly these points; the guide to how families compare estate sale quotes shows what they will put side by side.
5. Be honest when the estate is too small. Say so kindly, explain your minimum, and suggest what would work instead. A family you turned down well refers you as readily as one you worked for, and a sale you should not have taken loses money and a reputation both.
6. Follow up once, then stop. One call or note a few days after the walk-through. Then leave them alone. Families who feel chased tell other families.

Tracking what works

Keep one sheet, from the first month: the date of every inquiry, where it came from, whether it led to a walk-through, whether it led to a contract, and what the sale grossed. Ask every caller how they heard of you and write the answer down. After a year that sheet tells you which realtors send work that signs, which listing site produces walk-throughs and which produces only calls, and which of your own sales generated a client on the same street. Spend your time where the contracts came from. Companies that grow are rarely the ones that tried everything; they are the ones that noticed what worked and did more of it. The guide to growing an estate sale company through referrals is about the follow-up that keeps those sources warm year after year.

What to do next

Pick two sources from this guide and work them for a season rather than touching all six once. Write to the probate attorneys in your county, take a listing agent for coffee, and make sure your next sale has your name on every sign. Then list your company free so that families in your area who describe an estate can reach you, and read what to put in your estate sale contract so the proposal you leave after the walk-through is one they can sign.

Frequently asked questions