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Estate sales are having a moment, and the people going to them are getting younger. These, if you're not already on it, are events where people can visit a house and buy what's inside often because the owner died or is downsizing. Whether you are a serious antiques collector or just curious, there is no shopping experience quite like it. Rachel Kurzius takes us inside.
RACHEL KURZIUS, BYLINE: Maddy Brannon didn't mean to become an estate sale influencer in Washington, D.C.
MADDY BRANNON: I started going because I needed to buy furniture for my own house. And then when I went, I got really addicted, and I kept going.
KURZIUS: She noticed that her social media posts about estate sales were big hits, and people kept clamoring for more. So she kept giving them more. Now she curates weekly lists and previews of the most alluring estate sales in the D.C. metro area on her Instagram and TikTok accounts.
BRANNON: Hey, it's Maddy with another estate sale. This one's in Georgetown.
KURZIUS: We went with Brannon to preview an estate sale in Georgetown, a wealthy neighborhood in northwest D.C. She peruses the assortment of funky Espresso makers, vintage prints from famed art collective Bloomsbury Group and more to decide what goes in her video.
BRANNON: I'm looking at more pottery, and then there's, yeah, a bunch of little baskets.
KURZIUS: You never quite know what you'll find in an estate sale. That's part of the appeal. As Brannon preps her video, Meredith Stojkovic and Greg Oldoerp with Carderock Estate Sales hurry around the house with final tasks. They both notice the increased attendance at estate sales, especially among younger generations, who often love to shop secondhand.
MEREDITH STOJKOVIC: Now it's becoming more accepted.
GREG OLDOERP: Yeah, it's become more accepted.
STOJKOVIC: And it's a cool thing to do.
KURZIUS: It took them about 10 days to transform the space and price everything. At this sale, the big-ticket item is a signed letter from President Abraham Lincoln.
OLDOERP: The average person is not going to see that outside of a museum, you know, and let alone have the opportunity to buy it.
KURZIUS: The first morning of the sale is sunny and breezy, the perfect weather for the dozens of people waiting outside before the doors open at 10 o'clock. They've put their names on a list, hoping to be among the earliest to enter. Sofia Hernandez learned about the sale from Brannon's social media. She's been looking for art to decorate her apartment.
SOFIA HERNANDEZ: The last time I went to an estate sale was last week. There were, like, 200 people in the list before me, and I got there at - a little bit after 10. So this time, I learned my lesson, and I got here before it opened.
KURZIUS: That's the one big downside with estate sales' growing popularity. They're more crowded. Multiple attendees describe the angst of learning something you wanted already sold. But that doesn't outweigh the benefits, says Laura Quinones - like the sense of discovery when you happen upon something fabulous.
LAURA QUINONES: I love finding something unique, and also, if it's a good deal, I love that, too (laughter).
KURZIUS: Plus, attendees get to be a little nosy, says Leah Hammond, especially in D.C., which has so many homes of former diplomats, government officials and well-traveled collectors. She recently went to a sale that featured documents from the Nixon impeachment trial. Hammond also enjoys scoping out the real estate.
LEAH HAMMOND: Even seeing the house, I think, will be a treat.
KURZIUS: Inside the sale, people are crouching on their hands and knees. They're opening drawers and rifling through shelves filled with books and records. Hammond often wonders about the lives of the people whose stuff she's leafing through.
HAMMOND: If feels quite, like, heavy, too, but sort of respectful that you know that you're going to love these things that you get.
KURZIUS: It makes her look at the items that fill her own space in a new light and imagine how they might outlast her.
HAMMOND: I can only think about somebody else walking through my house one day, being like, oh, this mug I waited half an hour for is mine, which gives you kind of a different relationship to your stuff.
KURZIUS: Because if there's one thing you can do at an estate sale, it's buy items that will one day feature at your own estate sale.
For NPR News, I'm Rachel Kurzius.
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