Design mockup. This is a sample page built to show a layout, not a real business. The name, the phone number, the street address and every figure on it are invented placeholders. Not affiliated with any real company.

Harrow Lane Auction Co.Estate, farm and real estate · since 1963
(816) 555-0113

Somebody has to sell the house and everything in it.

Usually it falls to one person in the family, usually at the worst possible time, and usually they have never done it before. This page is what happens from the first phone call to the settlement check, in order, with the figures.

Seven stages, about nine weeks

Farm dispersals run longer because of the equipment appraisal. A single-household estate can be done in six weeks if the family is ready.

Stage oneDay 1

Twenty minutes on the phone

What is in the house, whether the real estate is selling too, and whether anyone is still living there. Most of the time this call ends with us saying an auction is the right answer, and sometimes it ends with us saying it is not. There is no charge either way.

Stage twoDays 2–5

We walk the property

Two of us, two hours, every room and every outbuilding. We are looking for the four or five items that will carry the sale and for the things that should go to a specialist rather than into a farm auction. Bring whatever paperwork exists. You do not need to clean anything first, and please do not throw anything away before we come.

The inside of a cluttered farm shed, hand tools hung along the board wall, crates and cans on a bench, daylight through the open door
A cluttered farm shed with the door open. Two hours in a building like this decides most of the sale bill.
Stage threeWeek 2

A written proposal

One page. The commission, the sale date, whether it runs on site or at the sale barn, what we expect the personal property to bring as a range, and what we recommend selling privately instead. You sign it or you do not. We do not ask for anything up front.

Stage fourWeeks 3–5

Cataloguing and setup

We tag, group and photograph. Family keepsakes come out first and go in a marked box for you, and this is the stage where relatives should say what they want, because after the sale bill is printed the answer is no. Boxes of mixed household goods get sold as lots rather than opened one at a time, which is how a sale of nine hundred items finishes in one afternoon.

Stage fiveWeeks 5–7

The sale bill and the advertising

A printed bill goes to about four hundred names on our own list, plus the county paper, the two regional auction sites, and a road sign at the property line. Good photographs of six or eight lead items do more than any amount of copy. If there is a tractor, the tractor is the advertisement.

A clipboard with a blank pad and a pen, a coffee cup, a roll of tape and a stack of loose paper on a kitchen table in morning light
The kitchen table the sale bill gets written at, with the stack of them waiting to go out.
Stage sixSale day

Preview at eight, first lot at ten

Two rings if the sale is large: one on the wagon for small goods, one working the equipment line. Clerking is computerised and buyers settle at the trailer before they load. Family are welcome to be there and equally welcome not to be. A good many people find they would rather not watch, and that is normal.

Stage sevenDay 10

Settlement

A check within ten business days of the sale, with the clerk's tally attached: every lot, what it brought, and every expense itemised against the proposal you signed. If a figure on that sheet surprises you, call and we will walk it line by line.

Rows of empty folding chairs set out on grass in front of a hay wagon, with a line of old tractors and implements along the fence behind
Chairs out, equipment line set, preview at eight. This is the yard an hour before the first lot.

What it costs

Illustrative

Personal property is 25% commission on the first $10,000 and 15% on everything above it. Real estate is 6%, or 4% when it sells the same day as the household goods, because the crowd is already standing in the yard.

Advertising is billed at cost and runs $400 to $900 depending on how much paper the sale needs. Cleanout of what does not sell, if you want us to handle it, is $65 an hour plus the dumpster. Everything else, the setup, the clerking, the ring help, the tent, is inside the commission.

There is no listing fee, no photography fee and no charge for the walkthrough. If we look at a property and tell you an auction is the wrong answer, that visit was free and we will usually tell you who to call instead.

Figures on this page are illustrative placeholders for a design mockup.

If you are the one holding the keys, call (816) 555-0113 and we will start with the twenty minutes.

Office hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 4:30. Sale days we are at the property, so leave a message and it gets returned that evening. We work Ray, Clay, Caldwell and Carroll counties, and we will travel further for a farm dispersal.