Emerald Estate Sales

I’m leaving this review as a buyer. Looking for the sale, there was absolutely no signage, with the exception of a tiny sign on the steps of the house. I entered the sale with the immediate impression that this was a «pop-​up» Georgetown retail antique store, with heavily inflated prices on everything, including pieces that still had the «owner’s» original discounted tag on the bottom. I have money to spend, but I’m not going to drop $ 2,000 on a vase.
The employees were cold, and I left the sale empty handed and disappointed.
I won’t be attending any more Emerald Estate Sales!

Wish I had checked reviews first… Terrible experience with Peggy Burd and Emerald Estate Sales. Contracted for a sale at my home in Great Falls, beofre my move in August. First, she asked for the agreed date to be moved back by two weeks, then she sent people who barely spoke english, who priced everything in the house, with no relation to real value. Some paintings were priced below the value of frames, other things priced way too high.
Bedroom suite priced late, and then way too high, so none of it sold.
The result: Even though Peggy assured me my house contents would bring at least 10,000 after walking through the house, the sale only grossed 5,000, and she took 3,000 of that– her minimum.
Because the sale was delayed, it was too late to do anything else, and so much good stuff was just discarded.
Terrible experience, unprofessional, disorganized, and poor communication from start to finish. Find someone else!

Used this company for an estate sale ⁸⁄₁₄. They showed up a day later then they said to prep. Some sale items disappeared &/​or were not accounted for. Some plants were dug up & a bird feeder was taken out of it’s concrete base. Floors were scratched removing what didn’t sell (were patched when pointed out). Mirrors & glass shelves were broken & some fragments were left behind. I had to make numerous calls to get the rest of what didn’t sell to be removed.
Most of all the charity statement they furnished is not legally useful because it is not itemized & priced as required for large amounts, or dated & signed by anybody from that organization. They are very disorganized.
Even now I still have not gotten back the house key. (a month later)

Wow, what a bad experience. Disorganized and a serious lack of communication. The employees running the sale do not have a firm grasp of English and the owner does not seem to be able to effectively communicate with them either — that or she just doesn’t care. I was disappointed with the sloppy pictures presented on the website — they were taken before the estate was staged. There was clutter everywhere in the pictures. They were running another sale the same weekend in the opposite end of the county so I think resources were spread thin. I requested that craigslist be used for advertising. I found a very sloppy ad for the other sale after I requested one but none for mine… so I ended up creating my own ad.
The owner seemed clueless about what her employees where doing. Things disappeared during the sale and after the sale. After the sale I told the owner I was rethinking donating some of the items left — we agreed that I would tag the items the next weekend before charity came to get what was left. When I returned to the house the next weekend, I found that the very items I told her I wanted to keep were gone — and charity had not arrived yet. The employees had access to the house to allow buyers from the sale to pick up furniture. The explanation I got was that the buyers picking up furniture decided to buy the items… yet I never received receipts for those items.
Another problem was that I had one bedroom set aside to store items I did not want to sell. The owner had asked me if she could bring some antiques to my sale and I agreed. Her employees set up my storage/​do not sell room with antiques! Therefore the items I didn’t intend to sell were strewn throughout the house and some of the items got sold before I found the mistake. One of the items was a pair of 6 month old $ 5000 hearing aids that got sold for 5 dollars. I still lose sleep over that. I felt that items were way under priced and all in all, a huge house that was jam packed with furniture and a lifetime of stuff only brought a total sale of $ 5500, $ 3000 of which was paid to Emerald Estate Sales. There is no accounting of items before the sale — your «inventory» of items consists of the hand written receipts your receive after the sale. The receipts do not, in most cases even give you a good idea of what was sold.