You can wind up with high-end items you want to sell for many reasons. Closing out the estate of a deceased loved one is a common example, but you might also be downsizing your home, merging two families, or just relocating and not wanting to take everything with you. High-end items nearly always have a market of willing buyers, but do you want to sell to the public or aim for private buyers? Targeting private buyers comes with several potential advantages, and the following are four that you should know.
1. Make More Money
High-end items range from cars and homes to collectibles, art, and furniture. One of the best reasons to arrange for a private sale is to skip dealerships or middlemen who might be looking to buy at wholesale prices only to flip things for a profit. A private sale means you can make more money through a direct sale, and the private buyer might still be getting a better deal than through a service or retailer.
2. Set Your Own Price
Auctions sometimes mean making good money on certain items if mass interest sparks a bidding war. However, high-end items tend to have more limited numbers of buyers, so there might not be enough interest in one event to drive the price as high as it should be. Even worse, high-end buyers might not show up at all. Arranging for private sales means you can set your minimum price and keep looking for the right buyer until you find one.
3. Post Ads Easily
If you’re willing to sell to a private buyer, you can find specific places to post ads that generate interest. For example, if you are seling a car, then you can look at newspaper ads in local publications, local bargain groups, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace. Depending on the make and model, you might find enthusiast or collector groups online and market the vehicle nationally where shipping is possible. Most categories of high-end items have natural avenues for selling directly to collectors.
4. The Chance to Learn
Going through all the steps involved with selling to a private buyer might involve a learning curve the first time you do it. However, if you find the process rewarding in terms of generating proper value and finding the right home for your high-end items, then you can put what you learn into play by selling to private buyers in future transactions.
Suppose you’re overwhelmed with the amount of work involved with clearing out an estate or managing a huge collection of items. In that case, it can be tempting to just turn everything over to one of many different private auction and selling services and let them free your hands of everything. However, they have experts on hand who can help you sort sellable items from the rest to save you time, and they might also have networks of private buyers they can reach out to so you get top dollar for the most valuable items you have to sell.