Warning: That high-end auction house price guide is killing your estate sale profits

I used to rely on those fancy online price guides for pricing, but a buyer told me straight up I was leaving at least 30% on the table for mid-century stuff. Switched to checking actual sold comps on local auction sites instead and my last sale in Tacoma did $4,200 over my original estimate. Anyone else ditch the big databases for local data?

2 comments

2 Comments

craig.parker20d ago

Started doing the same thing about six months back... those national guides just don't account for what people are actually paying in your specific area. Found a local auction house that posts all their sold prices online and it changed everything for my Portland sales. Now I price my Danish teak pieces according to what actual bidders paid here, not what some database in New York thinks they're worth.

alex_coleman20d ago

lol "New York thinks they're worth" - yeah cause the people running those databases probably haven't touched a vintage ashtray in their lives. I swear half those price guides are just guessing based on what sold at some Sotheby's auction for rich people. My best wakeup call was pricing a set of Heywood-Wakefield chairs at $75 each based on a national guide, then seeing a local auction down the street sell the exact same chairs for $225 a pop. Felt like an idiot but hey, at least I learned. Now I just use the big databases to figure out what not to price things at.