Might buy hoarder house contents

Interesting opportunity has come our way. A friend was approached by someone that has a full house that he wants to sell the contents of so it can be sold. It was too much for our friend and his partner to deal with so we were given the opportunity to partner up for the deal. The word hoarder was used. Apparently the man inherited it from an elderly lady friend who had no heirs. She was 92 and had lived there for 60+ years.  A little scary and two hours from home but we figured it was worth a try. I googled the address and the house is 1240 sq. feet. Nice neighborhood.  We went to see it today. OMG!!!!!! Yes you could call her a hoarder. But good news is she was a very clean hoarder. More like a collector really. No trash. Just stuff....everywhere. Boxes piled along all walls so walkways are narrow. The guy selling it has done some sorting and has removed clothing but not much else. Lots of figurines, trinkets, antique clocks, cast iron door stops, figurines and bookends, paintings and prints, furniture, very few books (thank God!), two big bins of jewelry (mostly costume but some sterling), depression glass, antique microscopes, antique opthomologist glasses set with all the lenses, lots of antiques and vintage stuff....I could go on and on but I am still so overwhelmed I can not even wrap my mind around it. The owner says no rush to get the house empty. I'm thinking it will take a month at least. Another thing that freaks me out is the whole partner thing. How in the world can you split something like this?
This is going to be a long process, not just to empty the house but to sell all the stuff. Also our friends don't have trucks or trailers (we do) or a place to store the stuff (we don't really but could make it work). Oh and did I mention that in addition to the 1240 sq foot house, there is a guest house, a garage with attached room, and another storage building that is probably another 1000 square feet. All full of stuff.     

Apparently the man inherited it from an elderly lady friend who had no heirs. She was 92 and had lived there for 60+ years.

That's nothing a wig won't take care of.

All full of stuff.   


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If it weren't for the partner aspect it would be an unbelievable deal; still good, but work out the details before the unloading begins...just my opinion.

So, haven't come to an agreement with the estate owner yet but have been talking to our 'partners'. Getting a little tense already due to the fact that we have the truck and trailers, property to store the stuff, and time availability. They are not storage buyers, by the way. They have a small antique shop so I do not think they have experienced processing a massive amount of stuff like this. Heck it's probably 10 times more than we have ever processed.  We asked about how much time they were going to be able to commit to this project which will most likely take months. Got a reply something like "you wouldn't even have known about this if it weren't for us calling you", which is absolutely true. We assured them that we were not trying to crowd them out but just don't want to commit to a 50/50 partnership and then have to do more than 50% of the work and have to store everything for months and months. Next we get another call from them offering to bow out of the deal altogether but want a substantial finders fee. We are happy with paying a fee but need to negotiate the amount. Any opinions on that? They don't really have any leverage since they can't do it without us but we absolutely want to be fair. Maybe a percentage of the proposed purchase price? The figure they suggested is almost 20% of the purchase price. I was thinking more like 5-10%.   

Are they friends?  a 10% finders fee sure, but 20%?  A lot of people vastly underestimate the time and effort involved in all of this. 

On the other hand...its a heck of a good find.

20% is ridiculous. Will they take some inventory as a reward for the lead?

Well we countered with a more reasonable amount and after a brief discussion they accepted graciously and all was well. Unfortunately after all that the estate owner won't budge on his asking price and no deal will be made with him. He wants 25k and just keeps saying he is sure the contents are worth 25k! Our last offer was 12k. We would have come up another couple thousand but he made it pretty clear he isn't going to budge. He said he would put it on the curb before he would accept an offer so small. OK dude good luck with that. I'm sure we could easily sell enough from this estate to make the 25k but we don't do this to break even! I'm a little sad because it would have been a fascinating adventure but a little relieved too because it would have been so much work. Guess I'll go buy a storage unit....

Soo...Wait...he will move it all to the curb for you, AND you get it for free!  Awesome!

But a word of warning, look up the relevant state laws-in some places if a tenant dies intestate the state becomes the owner of the items, others require that all of the items be held for up to a year for possible relatives to claim, and some basically say that the landlord owns it all after 30 days.

He said he would put it on the curb before he would accept an offer so small.

So when no one else will pay his asking price he might come back to you. If he does, be sure to only offer $9K.   

Out of the blue we received a call from the man with this house full of stuff. Asked if we were still interested. Um, YES! He had no memory of what our previous offer was and offered it to us for several thousand less then our offer back in July. Wow...just wow. He and his friend will be there to meet us on the 16th to do a walk through to make sure nothing has changed and exchange money and get keys. He plans to stay in town until the 28th and asked that we get it done during that time. He lives in Ohio, I think. He says he and his friend will help pack stuff. I am hoping he will see just how fast we will need to move to get stuff moved and take a step back and just let us get it done. He honestly cared a lot about this woman and has emotional attachment to her stuff so I can't imagine he will be a very fast packer. He is also at least in his late 70's, super nice guy buy not someone who will be helping us carry out dressers and sofas. Anyway, I will post updates and some pics as it goes. Should be interesting.

 I buy on ksl.com under classifys

Just made our final trip to clean out the hoarder house...and guest house....and garage with attached storage room....and shed....and barn. Took us 10 trips, 2 1/2 hour drive each way (more with traffic, once it took 4 hours). So far 4 trucks full of stuff taken to Goodwill, 4 dump trailer loads to the dump and 8 full 20 ft enclosed trailer loads of stuff now residing in our garage, barn, 2 10x25 storage units, and the 20 ft trailer is still full of the last load. We have lined the front of our property with give away furniture daily (mostly bookcases). The first three days it was all gone by the end of the day. I guess our neighbors have all had their fill of bookcases because they aren't taking any more. Just spent an hour breaking up the remaining bookcases and tossing them in the dump trailer.  Now we have to figure out how to sell all the good stuff. Gonna take forever!

Took us 10 trips, 2 1/2 hour drive each way (more with traffic, once it took 4 hours).

Incredible load...what was your total gasoline expense?

Not exactly sure because on the few days we didn't go we use the same truck for another service related business that can require lots of driving but I would say $800-$900 gas expense. Also over $300 in dump runs, $670 in labor (hired a couple people to help lift furniture on some of the days), and total storage fees remain to be seen. We rented two large units and hope to be able to drop down to one within 1-2 months. Will probably have the remaining one for several months. Oh, also spent a couple hundred on boxes, packing tape, energy drinks and ibuprophin!