Influencers Shake Up Estate Sales Industry

A viral TikTok tour of a powder-pink bathroom changed the trajectory of Quinn Garvey’s life. In the video, a blush-hued soaking tub like something from the Barbie Dreamhouse sparkles beneath thousands of mosaic tiles. Shag-pile carpeting, deep enough to swallow your feet, stretches across the floor. As the camera pans the room, scarcely a surface escapes the rose-tinted vision.

Garvey first encountered the all-pink-everything fantasy in 2024 at the dawn of her career as a content creator, when she filmed a walk-through video at an Encino, Los Angeles, home ahead of an estate sale. “I was just in awe of that bathroom. I had to take a second to make sure it was real,” she recalls of the space, which also featured seven classical Greek columns and fish-shaped taps.

Estate Sales Enter the Digital Age

Viewed 214,000 times on TikTok, with a follow-up video receiving a further 3.6 million views, the clips helped cement Garvey’s reputation as one of a new generation of influencers whose behind-the-scenes previews offer followers a tantalizing first glimpse before estate sales officially open. Three days after Garvey’s preview tour, the sale, organized by the LA-based company Handled, was underway, and a line snaked down the corridor of the mid-1980s home with the pink bathroom.

Visitors waited patiently for a chance to see the now-trending space in person, a sign that social media had introduced this old-school analogue world to a digitally native audience. Estate sales tend to follow the three Ds: downsizing, divorce, or death. When, in the wake of one of these life-altering events, everything must go, an estate sale is a way to sell off a large amount of furniture, decor, and art all at once.

The Rise of Influencers in Estate Sales

Once advertised through word of mouth or handwritten posters taped to lampposts, estate sales entered the digital age in the early 2000s with the launch of major online marketplaces EstateSales.org and EstateSales.net. Suddenly, listings could reach far beyond the local neighborhood, nudging open the door to what had long been a niche corner of second-hand shopping. Then came the pandemic, and a captive online audience developed an insatiable appetite for the voyeuristic thrill of sifting through other people’s stuff.

As influencers began posting videos from estate sales held inside time-capsule homes, often with celebrity connections or untouched vintage interiors, the scene exploded. The hashtag #estatesale has now clocked up 675,000 posts on Instagram and 153,000 TikTok videos. An early pioneer of the trend of sharing estate sales online is Macy Eleni, author of Second Chances: The Ultimate Guide to Thrifting, Sustainable Style, and Expressing Your Most Authentic Self.

In 2020, she posted her first estate sale video. Within 24 hours, it had racked up a million views. “That video took off and people went crazy. My followers were like what is this? Why is Macy in a huge mansion in Beverly Hills, shopping old Dior sweaters? It blew people’s minds,” Eleni says. “Pretty much all my estate sale videos go viral. It’s attracting a lot of younger people; it’s now a completely different demographic of people standing in line to how it was in 2020.”

Related: Vintage Lalique Bottles Gain New Popularity

Amy Byer, founder of Handled, says her company approaches each sale with sensitivity, honoring the history behind the possessions rather than simply listing them for sale. Byer was an early adopter of the influencer preview model and has also granted early access to celebrities.

For Quinn Garvey, documenting estate sale homes is about more than driving attendance and making a buck. “For fans of design and interiors, I feel it’s essential to document homes like this,” she says. The bathroom’s three-person tub, raspberry-hued bidet, and chandeliers of rose-quartz-colored shells may no longer exist in physical form, but they’ve at least been granted a second life online. In fact, the mid-century modern style of the home has sparked a lot of interest among design enthusiasts, similar to the style found in a Gilded Age apartment.

However, not everyone is happy with the increasing popularity of estate sales. Some dealers, like Timothy Burkhart, owner of Dial M For Modern, have decided to step away from the scene, citing the rising prices and the lack of secrecy. “The estate sale organizers got really greedy, even outpricing online sellers, and it just seemed like a rigged game,” he says.

Amy Jones, who runs an online retail business called I Luv Lucite, has also noticed the shift in the estate sale scene. Jones began sourcing from estate sales around six years ago, building a lucrative business reselling retro furniture and decorative objects. However, with the rise of influencers, prices have increased, and Jones now sources bargains from Facebook Marketplace and thrift stores, similar to how Venetia Scott works from an old postal office, finding unique items for her work.

As the estate sale scene continues to evolve, it’s clear that influencers have played a significant role in its growth. While some may see this as a positive development, others are concerned about the impact on the traditional estate sale model.

One thing is certain, however: the rise of social media has changed the way we discover and interact with estate sales.