I live in a fairly large city. There are a half dozen companies that liquidate estates. Most are good and fair to work with. Now I am talking from the point of view of being a picker. The point of view from the family selling the goods is another story.
There is one estate sale company who's sales I will never attend. The owner is a nice guy, and we get along, but his sales are not for the picker. First of all, he buys all of the goods in the house from the family. He high-grades the good stuff for himself before the sale which he sells on eBay. He then checks everything in the estate online and prices it at full retail. He is very organized and everything is organized by topic and size and color. It's like walking into an antique store. All laid out and priced and not a good deal in sight. No way to discover a treasure here. You will also see how he has many items from previous events he could not sell here again for another try. I just ignore these sales.