Made in Tarrant: Company creates boutiques for estate sales

Georgann Muckleroy and her team create order out of chaos.

As the owner of Cottage Classics Estate Sales LLC, Muckleroy has an eye for sellable items and how to display them — even in small homes. 

“I’m looking for quality and points of interest to create boutiques” inside the homes of clients, she said. 

Muckleroy, a former vendor at the Montgomery Street Antique Mall and online seller through eBay, has a 20-member team that works with her on organizing years of people’s stuff.

“People contact us and say, ‘We’re overwhelmed.’ That’s usually the word I hear most,” she said. “‘We don’t know what to do with our parents’ stuff.’ Sometimes, it’s a death. Sometimes, it’s a divorce. Sometimes, it’s downsizing.”

Potential clients call Muckleroy, who visits the property, assesses the items in the house and then, if she thinks she can sell the items, contracts with them to put on a sale. 

“I have my ladies come out. We start sorting and organizing first,” she said. “We’re polishing the silver. We’re washing the crystal, and then we retail-level stage it. That’s the thing that really sets us apart. We turn every home into a boutique.”

“I always say we turn chaos into beauty,” she said. “Sometimes, we make the chaos and then turn it around. We kind of try to figure out what is the best way to display all these items to sell.”

Contact information

Location: Typically homes across the Fort Worth area

Phone: 817-729-6849

Email: georgann@cottageclassicsestatesales.com

Website: cottageclassicsestatesales.com

Facebook: Cottage Classics Estate Sales LLC

Instagram: Cottage Classics Estate Sales

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Eric Garcia: How do you get the word out about your estate sales?

Georgann Muckleroy: We heavily advertise (on social media), and then we have a sale for three to four days. We have lots and lots of followers on Facebook. We’re almost at 20,000 (followers). On Instagram, we’re at about 19,000. We started TikTok this year, and we’re at 3,000 or 4,000. Our email list is almost 9,000. We use all those platforms, and most everyone uses estatesales.net as the most common platform. With the addition of all our other platforms, it makes us have really long lines, and people shop like crazy.

Garcia: How do you determine pricing for estate sale items?

Muckleroy: We don’t price retail. We price what I would say ‘fairly.’ We’re not cheap. We don’t give things away. It’s not a garage sale, so we can ask a lot more than that. But we want to be fair. We want people to feel like ‘I did well today. I didn’t pay bottom-of-the-basement pricing, but I feel like I got a really good quality item. I’m recycling, I’m being sustainable, I’m using or enjoying something that someone else enjoyed, and it’s not going into a landfill.’ To me, those are all wins.

Garcia: How well do estate sales do these days?

Muckleroy: The money greatly benefits the homeowner or the heirs, depending on the situation. It can be a great lump sum to help the families move on to the next stage in their life. The average estate sale in the nation is $18,000. Ours are much higher than that. The smaller sales are going to be $8K to $20K. Again, ours are much, much higher than that. … It’s really a benefit to the family because it helps clear out the property, and it’s a little nest egg for them.

Garcia: Do people understand that their items can be worth money?

Muckleroy: A lot of people don’t realize it. They think, ‘I’m just going to make $3,000.’ It’s like no, no, no. You’re going to make way more than that. 

Garcia: How does your company make money from the sales?

Muckleroy: We charge a percentage of the sale proceeds. It depends on the situation. I charge 40% to 50%, but I’m usually 40% to 45%. It just depends on how many man-hours I think are going to be involved. … We spend tons of hours on advertising and all those things. It’s not a garage sale where maybe 100 people will stop by. Usually, we have between 80 to 150 people in line when we open the door. Our transaction numbers are usually very, very high depending on the sale.

Garcia: Who are your customers?

Muckleroy: A lot of women and interior designers love our sales. A lot of people that resell even shop with us. We’re selling on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. 

Garcia: How do you judge the value of items?

Muckleroy: With the advent of the internet, it’s made such a big difference. It’s made our lives much easier. Ebay has really helped. Sometimes it’s helped bring prices down. We use all of that research; we use appraisers; we use whatever we think; and we try to price it not at retail but what we think a buyer will be willing to pay. We want to be known as fair and reasonable, but we’re trying to make as much as we possibly can for the family. It’s a balancing act. 

Garcia: What are people looking for when they go to your sales?

Muckleroy: Sales really differ. We do a lot of silver and crystal. … Sometimes we’ll do true dealer sales, where there’s tons of vintage items. Or we’ll do an antique sale with lots of primitives or true antiques. Sometimes we’ll do a lot of modern pieces or contemporary ones.

Garcia: How do you decide which homes are worth your time for estate sales?

Muckleroy: I have a large team, and we’ve been doing this for about six years now. I can’t take a $20,000 or $30,000 sale anymore. I have a lot of smaller companies that are referred to that are a perfect fit for those sales. I am looking for quality. I am looking for points of interest, what I think buyers will buy and what I think will attract people. I use a combination.

Garcia: Do you sell a lot of collectibles?

Muckleroy: It really runs the gamut. Out of experience, I know what sells well. I did do a house with over 2,000 Hummel figures, and it did well. We had people come all the way from Massachusetts to the sale. It’s a judgement call, and it’s what I think our shoppers will want.

Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org. 

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