About Sycamore Estate Services.
Why I started Sycamore.
Clearing an estate usually takes two companies. One sells what has value. Another clears what is left. Both can do their half well, and the coordination between them still lands on the family: access, scheduling, and every decision about what is worth selling. That is normally the executor, and often from another state.
The seam between those two jobs is where things go wrong. A sale company is measured on what it sells, so it stops when the selling stops. A cleanout company is measured on an empty house, so it has no reason to slow down and work out what is valuable. Nobody is responsible for the whole outcome, and the person left holding it is the one with the least time and the least information.
So Sycamore does the whole thing under one contract: valuation, cataloging, the auction, buyer pickup, donation and the final cleanout. I walk every property myself and I write the estimate you get. If the contents are not worth an auction, I will say so at the walk-through and tell you the cheaper way to do it.
What you get in writing
- A written estimate at the walk-through, before anything is agreed.
- An inventory of secured valuables, signed and dated, with every hand they pass through afterwards logged.
- The full catalog for your review before any lot goes live.
- Dated photographs of the property before and after.
- An itemized settlement statement showing every lot and what it sold for, within ten days of the last pickup.
- Scheduled dates in the estimate.
Honest valuations
If an auction is not worthwhile, I will explain the alternatives at the walk-through. If the job needs another company, I can refer you.
The same goes for anything that needs a specialist. Jewelry, coins, firearms and fine art go to one before they are listed rather than after, because value lost in a general lot is not recoverable once that lot has closed.
Where we work
Oakland, Piedmont, Berkeley, Alameda and the inner East Bay. Close enough that the same person can be at your house twice in a week if the job needs it.
The geography is part of the work here. Hill addresses in Montclair and Oakmore, permit-only blocks in the flats, and the bridges and tubes onto Alameda all change how a job is scheduled.
Oakland, Piedmont, Berkeley and Alameda.
Personal papers are not contents
Photographs, letters, documents and anything with a family hand on it are set aside for the family. They are not sold and they are not thrown out. Documents also live in furniture, so a deliberate search happens before anything is moved rather than after it has gone.