I have to sell my workshop!

[Arnak]

Very sadly I am going to have to downsize my house and due to a major reduction in my income as my wife has a terminal disease so I am going to have to sell my workshop in it's entirety.

So can anyone advise me wether selling to a company such as "We buy any workshop" will be a good way forward?

Such as how much do they pay, obviously that is dependant on what is being sold, items such as a good size Warco Lathe, Warco Mini Lathe, Warco Major Mill, Bandsaw, Electric Hacksaw, along with a lot of tooling and accessories.

Table saw, thicknesser,small planner, Pillar Drill, several solid shop made benches, Dust collector, Arc Welder, Comprtessor, Oscilloscope and electrical test equipment plus a large amount of other non specific equipment.

I am not in the position to have the time or energy to advertise each item seperately and need the whole workshop cleared.

Thanks for any advice.

Martin

 

[GreenTwin]

Sorry to hear that.
My wife developed a serious illness last year, and is so far been able to fight it off with medication.

The medication is very expensive though, so I can certainly relate to your situation.

Best of luck to you and your wife.

Pat J

.

 

[Arnak]

Sorry to hear that.
My wife developed a serious illness last year, and is so far been able to fight it off with medication.

The medication is very expensive though, so I can certainly relate to your situation.

Best of luck to you and your wife.

Pat J

.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Happily we are in the UK so we do not have to pay for treatment.

Of course, the loss of my soul mate will be devastating but also the loss of her income is going to make life very difficult for me sadly.

Martin

 

[SmithDoor]

Very sadly I am going to have to downsize my house and due to a major reduction in my income as my wife has a terminal disease so I am going to have to sell my workshop in it's entirety.

So can anyone advise me wether selling to a company such as "We buy any workshop" will be a good way forward?

Such as how much do they pay, obviously that is dependant on what is being sold, items such as a good size Warco Lathe, Warco Mini Lathe, Warco Major Mill, Bandsaw, Electric Hacksaw, along with a lot of tooling and accessories.

Table saw, thicknesser,small planner, Pillar Drill, several solid shop made benches, Dust collector, Arc Welder, Comprtessor, Oscilloscope and electrical test equipment plus a large amount of other non specific equipment.

I am not in the position to have the time or energy to advertise each item seperately and need the whole workshop cleared.

Thanks for any advice.

Martin

I am sorry to here.
What is the disease.

Dave

 

[william_b_noble]

in answer to your question, which I think is really "how can I get a good value for my workshop because I will be needing the money"
if you sell it as a lot to one person you will probably get 5 to ten cents on the dollar (or however you say that in the UK). If you offer it here and other places yourself first, and ask attractive but not scrap prices, you will get more by selling one or two items than the professionals will pay for your whole shop. Where the professionals add value is under two circumstances:
1. you need money right now and even a week's delay will be a hardship (I understand this to not be the case)
2. you have an estate situation and no idea what the stuff is or who is interested (that is certainly NOT the situation)

I sold a lot of stuff from a friend's estate over an 18 month period. for my efforts and the efforts of others, I believe the estate got over 100K dollars - I did not do accounting for the state, that is my guess. I am certain that if a professional had come in (because I called some) they would have asked for $5 to $20K to "clear the place out". this estate had a lot of expensive stuff, several tons of raw material, thousands of end mills, drills, and other tooling, two fully operational lathes, three fully opeational mills, two surface grinders, a blast cabinet, and so on. Many new in box items. I sold new items at the location for 1/2 of new store price to give you an example of how I priced things. I sold high value used items for 30 to 50% below ebay sold prices. Bison chucks that would have gone in the dumpster brought $500 to $600, for example.

I believe that while you have a very sad and very stressful situation, selling your machines yourself will be the best way. If you can sell to folks that are local and trustworthy, a discount if you can "come and use the the machine sometimes" may give you the best of both worlds

 

[Richard Hed]

in answer to your question, which I think is really "how can I get a good value for my workshop because I will be needing the money"
if you sell it as a lot to one person you will probably get 5 to ten cents on the dollar (or however you say that in the UK). If you offer it here and other places yourself first, and ask attractive but not scrap prices, you will get more by selling one or two items than the professionals will pay for your whole shop. Where the professionals add value is under two circumstances:
1. you need money right now and even a week's delay will be a hardship (I understand this to not be the case)
2. you have an estate situation and no idea what the stuff is or who is interested (that is certainly NOT the situation)

I sold a lot of stuff from a friend's estate over an 18 month period. for my efforts and the efforts of others, I believe the estate got over 100K dollars - I did not do accounting for the state, that is my guess. I am certain that if a professional had come in (because I called some) they would have asked for $5 to $20K to "clear the place out". this estate had a lot of expensive stuff, several tons of raw material, thousands of end mills, drills, and other tooling, two fully operational lathes, three fully opeational mills, two surface grinders, a blast cabinet, and so on. Many new in box items. I sold new items at the location for 1/2 of new store price to give you an example of how I priced things. I sold high value used items for 30 to 50% below ebay sold prices. Bison chucks that would have gone in the dumpster brought $500 to $600, for example.

I believe that while you have a very sad and very stressful situation, selling your machines yourself will be the best way. If you can sell to folks that are local and trustworthy, a discount if you can "come and use the the machine sometimes" may give you the best of both worlds

I agree with this completely, however, when a person is under such stress, sometimes they do not want to bother.

Arnak, if you have a son or close friend or relative to help you that is what I would try.

 

[sniffipn]

pennytharthing and g&m buy tools and workshop contents

https://gandmtools.co.uk/i believe that they advertised on back page of model engineer magazine.

https://pennyfarthingtools.co.uk/often have interesting tools

where in the uk are you?
David

 

[Drawfiler]

Martin
this is a most stressful time for you and but I offer advice based on personal experience, I have helped clear 3 workshops for family and close friends in the last couple of years.
I dealt with this by advertising the larger pieces on suitable websites and dealing with the responders myself then supervising collection from the sellers workshop, I found the ‘we buy it all people’ were either uninterested in travelling far from base or offered derisory prices.
When the big ticket items have gone, the decision has to be made about worn small tools etc, dealing with these will probably involve selling on one of the auction sites or on specialist sites again, with all the problems of packing and carriage ( this stuff will not work well on a collect only basis). By now you will be getting fed up with the process but be patient and all will go in the end.
A lot depends on your location within the UK, if you PM me, I may be able to offer more specific advice.
Good luck
Peter

 

[clockworkcheval]

Agree with the former advice that selling piece-meal will yield several times the price you get from a wholesaler. The hard part is to catalogue, photograph and describe the contents of the workshop to appropriate detail. You clearly have the knowledge yourself and if you can get the assistance of a relative or a friend the task becomes doable and maybe even a pleasant distraction of your very hard times. The last workshop I did with a sister-in-law who would just steamroller on.

 

[ShopShoe]

From the USA:

From my experience what has been said above about selling piecemeal is probably the path of most monetary value for you. I know from experience that that could be very hard when under all the other stresses you have.

I would hope that you might be able to find friends and relatives who might be able to help with some of the process so you don't have to do it all alone.

I wish you the best of luck in this difficult time.

--ShopShoe

 

[trlvn]

Around here, online auctions have really surged. The auctioneer takes something like 30% off the top but takes all the photos, adds descriptions, and manages the process including pickup day. With good photos and detailed descriptions, prices tend to be really high so the seller gets a good return even after the commission fee. The time, effort and disruption to the seller is about as small as it can be.

Is this a possibility in the UK?

Craig

 

[awake]

I was just wondering the same - does anyone have experience with the success or otherwise of auctioning off a workshop?

 

[Arnak]

Wow, thanks for all the replies, I am quite overwhelmed by the wonderful support.

To answer the first question about her illness:

She went into the hospital with shortness of breath but after a scan, they found two small areas of lung cancer, a later head scan showed it has spread to one part of the brain, causing hallucinations sometimes

Then on top of that, they realized that she had fluid retention in her lungs which turns out to be from congenital heart failure with a vitrified aortic valve and afribulation.

So all in all a very bad prognosis with a potentially very short life span, months to a year.

The doctors are doing what they can but they are very disorganized as the state of the National Health Service in the UK and particularly in South Wales is abysmal, with staff going on strike for more pay (understandable), the hospital she is currently in has a disgusting reputation even although it is a brand new hospital!

Just to let you know, she is 78 and I am 74 which does not help!

Coming back to the workshop sale, I agree to sell piecemeal would no doubt bring in more funds but the effort of doing that while looking after my wife is daunting, to say the least, and with no close relatives or friends to help out I may have to go for a job lot.

Although I will see if I can arrange for some help.

Thanks again for all the support.

Martin

 

[SmithDoor]

Very sadly I am going to have to downsize my house and due to a major reduction in my income as my wife has a terminal disease so I am going to have to sell my workshop in it's entirety.

So can anyone advise me wether selling to a company such as "We buy any workshop" will be a good way forward?

Such as how much do they pay, obviously that is dependant on what is being sold, items such as a good size Warco Lathe, Warco Mini Lathe, Warco Major Mill, Bandsaw, Electric Hacksaw, along with a lot of tooling and accessories.

Table saw, thicknesser,small planner, Pillar Drill, several solid shop made benches, Dust collector, Arc Welder, Comprtessor, Oscilloscope and electrical test equipment plus a large amount of other non specific equipment.

I am not in the position to have the time or energy to advertise each item seperately and need the whole workshop cleared.

Thanks for any advice.

Martin

You could use Craigslist and see trade if someone who wants to upgrade there equipment.

Dave

 

[Richard Hed]

I would also recommend asking the guys in Britain if they are interested in any of you major tools or even any others. Probably some peop,le who would be intereste.

 

[Ken I]

I had the reverse experience - one of my suppliers had to sell up his toolroom in a hurry - he offered the entire stock to the various dealers and got pretty much the same crappy offer - he asked me if I was interested in matching their best price - I did. See :-
I Bought A Toolroom !
I subsequently sold off about two thirds of the machinery (I kept the rest along with a ton of small tools, holders, measuring gear etc.) for twice what I paid for it. That is easily three times better.
The remaining equipment still left me with a modest toolroom.
So you can do substantially better selling piecemeal - especially when you are not under pressure to sell and can turn down lousy offers.

Regards, Ken I

 

[william_b_noble]

I was just wondering the same - does anyone have experience with the success or otherwise of auctioning off a workshop?

the auction method will make it disappear fast but yeild well under a tenth of what on-line sales yeild. For an example, look at my ebay store - it is still 2/3 or so stuff from my friends estate - the electronics is from other sources - you can get an idea. and if you look at my sold items you can see what has happened over the last couple of years. the big items are not on ebay, mostly they sold for a bit over scrap prices - the money recovered was from accessories. for example, a 14 inch Zubal (poland) lathe sold for about $2500, with a couple of chucks and maybe a tool holder or two - I sold the other accessories, many chucks, and tool holders and whatnot for over $20,000. same with a nice Siamp vertical mill - around 2 grand for the mill, over 10 for the accessories. A steinel horizontal mill, $125 (a 1100 pound mill, that was scrap value, and it was in good working condition), the arbors and some tooling brought around $500. so unless your machines are tiny and can be picked up by one person, you can almost throw the machines away and sell the tooling and come out way ahead.

Oh, my ebay user name is the same as my username here if you want to see what I"m talking about. But it's a lot of work, figure 5 minutes to an hour for each item I have listed.

 

[PeterDRG]

Join SM E E. They have their own auctions and will take care of everything, including collection. They will find buyers for the bigger items and auction the rest. They have been doing this for widows for years. Other clubs may do the same.

 

[neil.r]

How about contacting a local Model Engineering Club, they may help, there will be members who are looking for machines and tools, there are a few in South Wales.

Neil

 

[Arnak]

Hi Guys,

Once again thanks for all the excellent advice.

I will follow up on what you have all recommended as much as I can as my wife is now out of the hospital and need quite a bit of looking after and follow-up palliative care which will leave me rather busy but I will do my best to follow your advice.

Martin