What an estate cleanout costs in Seattle

The honest shape of the number

Estate clearances do not have a single price, but they do have a predictable shape.

• A one-bedroom flat or a retirement apartment — half a truck at $431, sometimes three quarters at $587.
• A small house cleared of the obvious — a full truck, $732.
• A family house with a basement, an attic and a garage — two to three full truck loads, plus named heavy items.

Then the specific things get priced on top: upright piano $290, baby grand $438, hot tub $322, standard fridge $164, chest freezer $146, washer $133, dryer $128, home gym $241.

Minimum visit $95. There is no stair charge, no long-carry fee and no disposal fee at the end, which matters because estate houses here are rarely convenient.

Why Seattle estates are bigger jobs than they look

The characteristic estate property in this city is a house bought in the 1960s or 1970s in Wedgwood, View Ridge, Magnolia, Laurelhurst, Seward Park or the older parts of West Seattle, lived in by the same people ever since, and never once fully emptied.

Three features of that housing stock multiply the volume.

There is a real basement. Unlike most of the west coast, houses here have them, and a basement that has never been cleared in fifty years holds a startling amount — preserving jars, paint, tools, boxes of paperwork, the furniture from two previous living rooms, and a chest freezer.

There is often an attic too, reached by a hatch and a ladder, holding decades of boxes and Christmas decorations.

There is a detached garage with its own separate archaeology, and frequently a garden shed beyond it.

Families consistently plan for the visible rooms and are surprised by the other three spaces, which between them are usually more than the house itself.

The reuse pass comes first — but give it a deadline

Seattle families want things to be used rather than thrown away, and that instinct is right. Build it into the plan rather than letting it stall the plan.

A workable sequence:

1. Family takes what it wants, in one visit, with a date.
2. Anything with real value goes to a specialist — an estate sale, a dealer, or an auction house. Mid-century furniture, tools, instruments and good timber pieces have a genuine market here.
3. The next tier goes to donation or a neighborhood group. Solid furniture, kitchenware, books, garden tools.
4. Everything remaining goes on the truck, on a date booked in advance.

The step that goes wrong is the third one running indefinitely. If the house is being sold, the clearance has a deadline whether you set one or not — and a house half-cleared for three months costs money in ways the clearance never would.

The items that catch Seattle executors out

Oil tanks. A great many pre-war houses here were heated by oil, and the tank is still there — in the basement or buried in the garden. It is $461 empty and $847 if it is still full of oil. It matters because it comes up during a sale, and discovering it in the last week is the worst possible timing. Find out early whether the house has one.

Pianos. Upright $290, baby grand $438, grand $513. Very common in these houses, almost never wanted by the family, and never a DIY removal down a narrow stair with a turn at the bottom.

Paint and chemicals. The basement shelf. Paint is $30 for a one-gallon can and $52 for a five-gallon bucket, and it is handled separately.

Paperwork. Decades of it. Boxes of books are $45 each; a freestanding paper shredder is $37. Sort what needs keeping before the day — this is the one thing nobody else can do for you.

The garden. Yard waste $88, and a small disassembled storage shed $186. In this climate a shed left to itself for a decade is usually past saving.

Access, and why it is priced out rather than added on

A full truck with the piano is $732 + $290 = $1022. A laundry pair alongside a half truck is $431 + $133 + $128 = $692.

None of those numbers move because the house sits fifteen steps above the sidewalk on a Magnolia hillside, or because the basement stair is narrow and turns at the bottom, or because the truck has to park down the block. That is the ordinary condition of Seattle property and it is inside the price rather than added to it.

If you are doing this from out of state

Common here, because a lot of Seattle's adult children moved away and a lot of Seattle's older owners stayed.

It can be run remotely. What makes it work:

• A walkthrough video — every room, the basement, the attic hatch, the garage, the garden. Ten minutes of footage prices a job properly.
• A written keep list, specific and photographed, so nothing is judged on the day.
• Someone local with a key, or a lockbox and an agreed arrangement.
• A receipt and photos afterwards, which you will want for the other beneficiaries and for the sale file.

Book it against the listing date rather than the probate date. Photographers, inspectors and contractors all queue behind the clearance.

Sequencing a whole house

1. Walk it once with a notebook, including the basement, the attic and the garage. Do not price anything yet.
2. Set the family date and the specialist date.
3. Book the clearance for after both, and allow more than one day for a full house.
4. Do the heavy named items on the first day — piano, appliances, hot tub — so the rooms are workable.
5. Volume pricing for the rest.

And the Seattle-specific caution: do not stage anything in the driveway or on the porch between days. Whatever you put outside overnight will be wet in the morning, and the donation pile is the pile that suffers most.

Frequently asked questions