I am trying my best to be fair about this review to inform future potential customers. This is information that I would have like to have had before we used this company. If you want assistance cleaning out an estate this would be a great service to use. If you are wanting an estate company that will sell your items and get buyers to come in to make a profit, I would do research into the caring transitions franchise and CT BIDS online auction. The owner Billie is nice and I truly think he wants to provide a good service, but don't think they have the right advertising or followers to get enough buyers in for your estate items. Suffice it to say that there were very few buyers and many of the items from our estate were basically given away for pennies. Billie, when we initially met, had indicated that they had "hundreds of buyers" and was bragging about a similar sized sale just previous to ours that had brought in tens of thousands in sales. I understand that he is a business owner and it is his job to "sell" his service, but that was not at all the experience we had. The staff seemed overwhelmed and even made comments about there being "lot of things". Well, its an estate sale of a 3 bedroom house, this was not a massive estate. Only 194 items were listed on the auction. It was off-putting that this is what they do, yet a smaller sale seemed to overwhelm them. They had to come back 2 additional days and on the last day didn't even get to all the items. My husband and I actually did 90% of the work organizing for them. Billie did decrease the upfront cost from $1000 to $500 for the "liquidation" fee due to the 3 weeks of work my spouse and I put in. They also charge a $500 fee for clean out, and take ~35% of your sales. On the bidding platform the buyers are charged a very high 18% buyer fee as well as if they pay shipping, many complain that the shipping is excessive. I truly believe that turned away many buyers from the auction. I did a lot of behind the scenes posting of specific items in FB groups and had many interested buyers for collectible items, but due to what I stated above, they did not bid. As the auction proceeded, I noticed the bids were VERY low, Billie kept reassuring me it would pick up last 24 hours, that DID NOT happen. Then the last hour it was clear the bids were terribly low. Very nice items worth hundreds to thousands on the regular market auctioned off for under $20. There should have been minimum bid prices paced on the high $ items. On the pick up day, buyers were allowed to "pick", and once again, we only made $125 for some very nice items!! I have had garage sales selling junk and make hundreds! I just don't think this business has the followers or advertising to bring buyers in, unlike I was told when we signed the contract. Again, I will be clear, if you are wanting to hire a company and pay them to clear out or downsize and profit is NOT part of your goal for an estate sale, then you may give this company a 5 star review. Since that was not our goal, we felt like our estate was simply given away. It depends on what your expectations and goals are. I think if Billie had been more upfront with us on what to expect, I would have not been so very disappointed with our experience. CT bids is not a great auction platform (*read the online reviews on CT bids, don't just take my review as your guide). I initially had given a lower star review, but Billie has been willing to try to make things right and has apologized for not being more transparent about expectations of the estate sale auction, for that reason I have increased to 3 stars. The misrepresentation of the auction success (which you can see on another review are the same as mine) as well as the lack of knowledge with staff, made this less than desirable experience. We are not new to the estate sale process having had 3 estate sales personally prior, so I feel its not unrealistic that we had a different outcome.

As a Realtor, Caring Transitions of Sun City Center is an important asset in my toolbox. I consider them a valued business partner. I work the senior market & the services that they offer benefit my clients with the very difficult moving process. Their online auction services help with disposing of belongings while earning a little cash. When the auction is complete, all can be removed & home broom cleaned leaving the home ready for marketing photos. My senior clients have been so happy with Billy & his amazing crew. They give this professional & caring company a huge thumbs up & I will give them a 5 Star review!

The entire team at Sun City Center Caring Transitions are AMAZING! Chrystal, Janette, Jacob, Victoria and Billy certainly earn the "Caring" part of their business name. Thanks so much to all of you!

This was the best decision we could have made. From start to finish Billy and the team worked to help us, guide us, and were so compassionate and caring. They walked us through each step and made this process easier than we imagined.

A caring honest team of professionals. It was such a relief to have my loved one's home completely emptied.