Selling your unwanted belongings - New York News | NYC Breaking News

Selling your unwanted belongings

Clothes, paintings, furniture: your home is overflowing and it's hard to tell the treasure from the trash.

Enter appraiser Lee Drexler, an expert of letting go of unwanted items and getting top dollar for them.

For fine arts and antiques, Drexler recommends getting them appraised, then hitting an auction block.

"Everything at auction now is listed on the Internet," she says. "Everybody in the world will see your item!"

She says your goods could sell for about 10 to 100 times what they're worth.

"There was a vase sold this year, a Chinese vase and the auction house that sold it thought it was a reproduction they estimated it at $1,000 to $1,200--they sold it for $18 million."

Drexler says you could also unload unwanted items through a dealer. She says it's a good idea to get multiple estimates.

"You have them come in at different times, they give you a bid as to what they're going to pay and if you agree to take the person who has the highest price, they have to come in with a certified check."

But if your items are not that fancy, Drexler says you can always list them on eBay.

Although she says packing and shipping the items could be time consuming.

"It reaches thousands of people, but you do have to negotiate with the person to determine what the price will be, you then have to pack and you have to send the thing, so if you have a few things it could work out very well."

Drexler says another good way to let go of your items is at a tag sale.

"Auction houses don't like taking things from your kitchen, cucumber peelers or carrot choppers that cost you $2 or $3, but at a proper tag sale it could be sold. You could make thousands of dollars."