The idea of selling your Brookhaven or Atlanta home often brings excitement about what comes next, but the reality inside the house can feel overwhelming. Closets overflowing, garages packed, rooms filled with years of belongings – these challenges can slow your move and reduce the value of your home if left unaddressed.
In this episode of How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage and Grace, top Atlanta Realtor Judy Jernigan sits down with Steve Holcomb, owner of Castle Estate Sales, to uncover how a professional estate sale can transform a cluttered home into a streamlined, profitable launchpad for your next chapter. With 40 years of experience in estate sales, antiques, marketing, and senior-level business leadership, Steve shares a wealth of actionable insight that empowers homeowners to move forward with clarity, not chaos.
Steve explains why estate sales consistently outperform yard sales for homeowners preparing to sell.
Listeners learn:
Why estate sales attract more qualified buyers
How professional pricing, staging, and marketing dramatically increase profit
Why hiring experts prevents underpricing valuable items
This segment makes clear that an estate sale is a strategic financial decision, not simply a decluttering event.
Steve walks through the simple steps homeowners should take before hosting an estate sale – and the surprising things they shouldn’t do.
Key insights include:
Why homeowners should avoid pre-sorting or pre-donating
How professionals identify hidden value
What Castle Estate Sales handles from start to finish
Listeners walk away feeling relieved knowing they don’t have to lift every box themselves to get their home market ready.
Judy and Steve dive into the common pitfalls that can cost homeowners money and stress.
This section covers:
Transparency issues
Pricing concerns
Lack of marketing or staging
Hidden fees and contract traps
Homeowners learn exactly how to protect themselves and choose a reputable partner.
Steve shares the must-ask questions to quickly identify whether an estate sale company is professional, ethical, and worth the investment.
This part equips homeowners with clarity and confidence before they commit.
Judy and Steve discuss how the timing of an estate sale affects:
Listing photos
First impressions
Market launch strategy
Cash flow for your move
This helps home sellers understand how estate sales fit into a well-planned pre-listing timeline.
Many homeowners don’t realize how profitable a well-run estate sale can be.
Listeners discover:
How proceeds can cover moving costs
When funds can support necessary pre-listing improvements
Why decluttering boosts sale price and reduces days-on-market
For many, this insight is a turning point in understanding how estate sales support both financial and emotional transitions.
Clutter isn’t just stressful – it can block buyers from seeing your home’s potential and reduce your final sale price.
A professional estate sale provides:
• Freedom from overwhelm
• A faster path to listing
• Additional funds for upgrades, moving, or your next home
• A streamlined, emotionally supportive step toward your next chapter
This episode gives homeowners the knowledge and reassurance they need to start the selling journey with clarity.
Owner, Castle Estate Sales
40+ years of experience in estate liquidation, antiques, and marketing. Known for empathy, professionalism, and transforming even overwhelming homes into successful estate sales.
Find Steve:
• EstateSales.net: Castle Estate Sales
• Facebook: Castle Estate Sales by Steve & Deanna
• Episode 6 – How Craftsmanship & Renovation Strategy Increase Home Value
• Episode 2 – How to Buy and Sell at the Same Time
• Episode 16 – How New Development Impacts Atlanta Home Values
Sell your Atlanta home with clarity, confidence, and world-class guidance.
Website: https://sageandgracere.com
Get Your Home Valuation: https://sageandgracere.com/home-valuation
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judyjernigan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sageandgracerealty
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sageandgracerealty
Schedule a Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/judyjernigan
Here is a tailored testimonial you can use on the webpage, email, or social media:
“This episode lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I had no idea how much value was sitting inside my cluttered home until Judy and Steve explained the estate sale process. Their guidance made everything feel manageable. If you're overwhelmed by years of belongings, this episode is the roadmap you need to move forward with confidence.”
Transcript
[Speaker 2] You're ready to move, but your stuff isn't. The attic's full, the garage is worse, and you're starting to wonder if your belongings are multiplying overnight. Join us for the next episode of How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage and Grace. Whether you're downsizing, relocating, or handling a loved one's estate, that mountain of stuff can feel like a full-time job. So what do you do when you're trying to sell a house that's still packed to the rafters? That's where estate sales may come in. We're talking with Steve Holcomb of Castle Estate Sales about how to turn all that clutter into cash and make your home market-ready. Selling a home isn't just about putting up a for sale sign. It's about strategy, marketing, and negotiation. But how do you know if you're making the right moves? I'm Judy Jernigan, recognized among the top 5% by the Atlanta Realtors and your host of How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage and Grace, smart homeowner strategies, successful real estate sales. With a background in broadcasting, negotiation, and education, I bring a unique perspective to home sales, helping homeowners sell faster, for top dollar, and with less hassle, while understanding not just the financial side, but also the logistical and emotional considerations of a move. This show helps you plan ahead, navigate the market, and work more effectively with a realtor like me. You'll get expert insights from my guests, plus real, actionable strategies to sell with confidence. Now here's the show, moving you forward with Sage Advice and Grace. Today's guest knows exactly what to do when your house is packed, your move is looming, and you're staring down a lifetime of stuff you don't want to take with you. Steve Holcomb and wife Deanna own Castle Estate Sales, helping families across Georgia downsize, relocate, or settle a loved one's estate with professionalism, empathy, and serious sales chops. Steve brings over 40 years of experience in antiques, estate contents, and marketing, including senior roles with Fortune 500 companies, and he knows how to turn your what-do-I-do-with-all-of-this into real money in your pocket. Whether you're getting ready to sell a home that's still full of belongings, or just trying to get a clean slate before you list, Steve has seen it all and has smart, realistic advice for getting it done without losing your mind. Welcome Steve. Thank you for being here. So for homeowners who have maybe never had an estate sale, or maybe you've never been to an estate sale, let's start big picture. What is an estate sale? How is it different from, say, a garage sale or a yard sale? [Speaker 1] Number one is that we organize everything in the house from bringing it out of closets, drawers, whatever. We merchandise everything in the house in a fashionable way so it's a fun shop and easy to see all the contents of the home. Then we price it and get everything ready for sale and have typically a three-day sale. And it's that simple. Also we ask is that the owner of the estate or the executor of the estate allow us to have them take what they don't want sold out of the equation, take it home, put it in their garage, lock it up somewhere, and then we'll sell the rest. So it's kind of a very hands-off for them turnkey opportunity to make money on stuff that should be worth money. [Speaker 2] So if you don't want to sell it, best to remove it or get it out of sight and maybe quarantined in one room. [Speaker 1] Exactly. [Speaker 2] Everything that's left, you take care of. [Speaker 1] Exactly so. [Speaker 2] I love how easy you make it. So for someone getting ready to sell their home, let's talk a little bit more about how this could benefit them. [Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, it benefits them in the fact that if they were to try to do it themselves, it could take up to six months. We've got experience in people doing that and they get fed up, throw up their arms, and they say, we want somebody that knows how to do this so that we organize the crowd that comes in. We advertise heavily to get people to come in and shop, and they know what our expectations are as well. [Speaker 2] So what do you mean by your expectations are? [Speaker 1] Our expectations are to sell everything that they allow us to sell at the highest price possible. And that price may come down over the three days, but our job is to maximize their dollars. [Speaker 2] Let's talk to that point. An estate sale is going to benefit someone selling their home, I see in two ways, help them clear out their belongings, but also help them maybe financially prepare for their move. [Speaker 1] Exactly. It's really, when I say turnkey, it's kind of a cliche, but they are typically hands off. Just take what you want, keep it out of the equation inside out of the house or locked up. We'll do everything. And at the end of the sale, we do a complete clean out and there's no extra cost for that. So it's for them is, hey, they come in, they get some house cleaning done with bathrooms and whatnot, and it's ready to go on the market. Wow. [Speaker 2] That's what real estate agents like to hear. So what should homeowners look for when they're choosing an estate sale company? [Speaker 1] Number one, I think is the experience and how they rate with consumer response, because we are working primarily for the estate, not the shoppers. That's a secondary customer, but our estate is really making them happy with what we did in the time that we did it. And also we take care of the house. Scratches, dings, dents, or whatever doesn't occur because we use all the protective gear that you can imagine to make sure that when things are being moved out, we're not hitting walls or punching holes in sheetrock. So we've done it a long enough period of time to know what precautions we need to take to make that happen. [Speaker 2] What questions should a homeowner ask before signing a contract? [Speaker 1] Number one is, what does it cost? Because costs are hugely ranged from very low to very high, and a lot of companies will actually have secondary menu costs like, oh, I didn't know that a clean-out cost a lot more money. So it's to ask what all does this cost include, and what can you guarantee me about the sale? Do you think it'll be a big sale, a small sale? Is it worth your while? Because if it's not worth their while, they're not going to put forth a whole lot of effort. And I mean, you know, if there's not a whole lot of stuff to sell. [Speaker 2] So how much stuff do they need to have to make it worth bringing in a stay-at-home company? [Speaker 1] We do a free consultation because the only way I can really know that they can take pictures of every room, but it doesn't really tell me whether it's an antique or whether it's in good condition or whatever. So I do a consultation, no cost, go in and analyze what kind of products they have that they want us to sell. And we can look at all those items and come up with kind of a fair assessment, whether it's a good sale or bad sale. But it's a lot of stuff is the best thing you need for a sale to be as successful. [Speaker 2] So you do need to have a significant amount of inventory, if you will, for it to make sense. All right. What are some common red flags, if you're comfortable speaking to this, that may indicate an estate sale company isn't reputable? [Speaker 1] Well, one of them, if the owners of the company aren't there. Another would be if they don't accept debit cards, credit cards, you know, Zelle, Apple Pay, things like that. [Speaker 2] You mean from the shoppers, the people coming through, the secondary customers, making sure that they can pay from Zelle? [Speaker 1] Well, when they do come up with an item to purchase that they have, that we offer all forms of payment, except personal checks. And a lot of companies take only cash, do you log the item sold? Yes, we do. Can we prepare a document at the end of the sale for the estate? Yes. A lot of people don't do that either. They just say, here's your check. And, you know, sometimes that's not a good thing, because you don't really know what happened to your items and what they sold for. So, and the other is safety. Safety is a big concern because we've never really had an accident occur. But if a company is not insured, registered with a state, a licensed company, or an LLC, you don't want to, there are a lot of people that are out there, what we commonly call weekend warriors, that will do an estate sale because they've been to several and they think they know how to do it right. And it's normally not very safe. We put up a lot of safety things at the beginning of stairwells and things like that, just to prevent and make them more aware that, hey, these stairs are steep, you know, beware, that type of thing. [Speaker 2] All right. So making sure they have proper, all forms of payment when people are shopping, proper documentation when all is said and done, taking safety into consideration, and insurance, you mentioned. Let's talk about who estate sales are for. I think people, they hear the term estate sale, and they often think it's an estate from someone who has passed away. But that often isn't the case, like in the case of my clients who were just downsizing, and some other clients who are just moving to a fully furnished home. Can you talk about the scenarios of customers that you work with? [Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, it's normally divorce, downsizing, debt, or death, the four Ds, as we call it. And the most often, it's people downsizing that are people my age, 65, 66 years old, that say, hey, I don't want this big three-story house on 10 acres. I'd rather do a two-bedroom, two-bath home on a flat piece of slab. And when they do that, they're simplifying their lives. And by simplifying their lives, they have to reduce their inventory of what they have in that home because of the square footage. And that's probably the most frequent. We have some bizarre situations sometimes when there's death involved or whatever, but it's really anything you want to get rid of. And people think of, like to your prior point, as an estate sale typically means a mansion. One of the best sales we ever did was a two-bedroom, two-bath townhome. And it was because every square inch had neat little collectibles on really neat cabinets and stuff like that. And so the dollars per square inch in that house were phenomenal. [Speaker 2] Wow. [Speaker 1] And we walked out, we thought, I can't believe we got that much money out of this house. But it was fun because we always say the things that bring money are the amount of stuff you have in that home, also the categories you have. If I go into a home and they have at least five to eight different categories, like maybe it's China, antique furniture, lawn equipment, whatever it might be, those different categories all mean you get different shoppers. And that person coming in to buy, yeah, that person coming in to buy that used lawnmower says, ooh, my wife likes this China or something. So the more people you can get with the more categories in the sale, you tend to make more money at that sale. [Speaker 2] Speaking of marketing, that brings me to my last question. And you and I have talked about this before, and I don't know if we're in agreement, but it's partly because it's really going to depend on the home and the people who are moving, is when you're working with realtors, helping them get a client, a mutual client's home ready to sell, the timing is something that you and I've talked about. Should the estate sale come before the home is listed on the market or after as part of maybe a marketing plan for home that is for sale? What are your thoughts on just the timing of it? [Speaker 1] It really depends on the, I'd like to say the time of year, but that doesn't ring, I mean, one of the biggest sales we ever did was on Thanksgiving weekend. Yeah, and people say they didn't have the time, they had to do it. And I gave it some real long thought before I did this. I said, you know, but people, but it was near an outlet mall in Dawsonville. And they were 1.2 miles away. And I got every shopper out of that store by all the signs around the mall itself, right to their house. And so it was a huge sale because it's all about traffic flow. And they're out and about anyways on Thanksgiving, looking for that last minute item or that weekend just to get out of the house and maybe burn some calories at the outlet mall. So, you know, I don't know if that answers your question, but there's really no limitation as to what we can do on any given weekend if it's advertised properly. But I think the best case scenario for the realtor would be sell it while there's things still in the house, but you've already listed it as a coming soon. And then we put out flyers because there could be some buyers that come through that want to look at that house, nosy neighbors, whatever. And all of a sudden you realize, hey, I've got a couple of leads out of this. And everybody likes a bidding war if you're in a real estate market. [Speaker 2] So I love the exposure, the foot traffic that could help definitely sell the home. Even the nosy neighbors are going to know somebody who wants to move to the area. But an estate sale is often, I think you're exactly right, it's coming soon because an estate sale is often helping us get the home decluttered, depersonalized, cleaned up a bit so that it can look really good for pictures and other marketing materials. So I think ideally it's usually going to happen before pictures, but after it's listed so that we have the list price and they know who to contact, who the listing agent is. However, one couple that we both talked with, they're wanting to get rid of so many things, the home would be fairly vacant and they've decided to hold off on the estate sale because they don't want to live in this five bedroom home without any furnishings in it. They're downsizing to a two bedroom. They're planning to sell a lot. And they don't want to be in their five bedroom home without a sofa and I don't blame them. So we're doing things sort of not quite in the order, but we're going to wait. They're going to wait until they're under contract and they have a home buyer before they go ahead and get rid of a lot of their things. And I'm glad I have you to help me help them with that. [Speaker 1] Oh, that's our job and we appreciate the business. [Speaker 2] Where can people find you? [Speaker 1] They can find us on estatesales.net under Castle Estate Sales by Steve and Deanna. They can also go to LinkedIn, Facebook. We're there. I don't have a website. Don't need one. [Speaker 2] Okay. [Speaker 1] Word of mouth. So yeah, word of mouth is the biggest way we've advertised is by doing a great job, exceeding the client's expectation and then they'll refer us. In fact, I don't go on estatesales.net at all to find sales that I can look at or maybe secure. It's a hundred percent referral and I'm busy more weeks in a year than there are. [Speaker 2] Thank you for doing this. [Speaker 1] Well, thank you. I enjoyed it. Thank you. [Speaker 2] Thanks for joining us on How to Sell Your Atlanta Home with Sage and Grace. I'm Judy Jernigan and I love helping homeowners sell smarter with less stress and better results. Who do you know with real estate questions? Please connect us so we can make confident, well-informed decisions and get the best possible outcomes together. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe and leave a five-star review. It helps more homeowners get the smart strategies they need for a successful sale. Head to sageandgracere.com to learn more about working with me and the Sage and Grace real estate team. Explore all our show episodes and when you're ready, book a chat directly with me, Judy Jernigan, moving you forward with Sage advice and grace.