Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Van Jones
Hi Michael , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My partner Luisa and I started Vintique Estate Sales in Jan 2018 in Austin. We had just arrived to the city about a year prior fresh from a stint living in Oakland, Ca where we were trying to figure out how to make it. Reverse a year and we both were living and working in Queens, NYC when we met in mid 2016 and just felt complacent so we decided to drive 3,000 miles to explore what California had to offer. There, in Oakland we made our money thrifting/reselling and going to estate sales at the last day to score treasures that we could resell at the various Bay Area flea markets. I remember going to an estate sale in Berkeley and seeing the owner of the companies Range Rover that had a license plate that read LIQUID (short for Liquidator) and I was impressed that this is what he did for a living. In the next six months or so Luisa started a dog walking company in Oakland while I continued to sourcing items to resell, it was all good and we were covering our expenses but California was just to expensive so we decided to venture to Austin, TX. Neither of us ever set foot in Texas so we had no idea what to expect, was it horses and cowboys? Not quite, Austin in Jan 2017 was booming. Luisa continued her dog walking company in downtown Austin, and we were subletting a duplex in Zilker for cheap and I secured a sales job at Dell thanks to one of Luisa’s main dog walking clients who hooked me up. I was about 5 months into working at Dell when I realized; why am I staring at a computer screen all day? Is this really my purpose in life? I had made the decision to leave Dell so one day I went on my lunch break and never returned. This was October of 2017 and Luisa started to fizzle out the dog walking as the App Wag took most of her clients…..so we were at a crossroads living in Austin, we were there in California too so we knew how to bounce back and figure it out. We went to an estate sale in Georgetown where the liquidator was selling a ton of vintage toys and I love vintage toys specifically die-cast cars but I couldn’t afford the first day prices so I went back the last day and alas the cars were all sold but he had about 500 Avon bottles left extremely cheap so I bought them all. Avon perfume bottles in the 70-80’s made there bottles into cars, horses and other cool designs, the fragrance was a terrible smell though. I was able to sell all the Avon and make a profit! I got the phone number of the guy who was helping out at the sale. Over the next few months this guy Jim showed us the estate sale business ropes to the point in late 2017 Luisa and I had 3 storage units and a barn off Williams Drive in Georgetown selling estate sale leftovers to the general public. We would do clean outs for this one company, clear the house of its contents, take them over to the units and sell and give Jim a percentage and we kept the rest, it was fun but we wanted to be in charge and have our own company. So in 2o18 we did just that, Vintique Estate Sales was born. We had now moved a little north to central Austin in a cute little apartment complex called the Chelsea. We hired our downstairs neighbor who was a graphic designer to come up with a logo. Since we collected typewriters and had about 15 in our collection at the time we wanted to incorporate a logo with one.. We formed our company and patiently waited for our first client and in March we found one in South Austin. After our first sale we kept at it and did estate sales every other weekend in Austin and beyond. We had so much fun learning the business that first year but we wanted more. Also in 2018 we decided to start our own booth at the Round Rock Antique Mall as well as a mall in Salado to sell our thrifting treasures. After doing the whole booth thing we decided to open up our own antique mall so we created Vintique Mall in Jan 2019 and moved our headquarters and estate sale company to Taylor TX where we currently reside, We also started Vintique Collective in downtown Taylor in April 2024.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road in the sense that Luisa and I had to hustle and work hard in order to create the life that we wanted. It was a constant grind, since our time in California we were in debt, we had to figure out how to survive and make our own money; to live and flourish. The estate sale business was slow to get going but we were able to figure out an algorithm that worked for us to keep us stable and afloat among the other competitive companies who came before us. Once we started getting clients via self promotion and marketing, we were able to make a name for ourselves and the business started to take off.
We’ve been impressed with Vintique Estate Sales , but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Vintique Estate Sales specializes in in-person estate sales, clean outs, buyouts and online auctions.
Vintique Estate Sales stands by its values of providing our clients with world-class service. This includes honest dealings, exceptional communication & customer service. We also believe in the energy of the home and respect its contents. We are known for having a large following, advertising and marketing is key in this business, we advertise on a number of different platforms and one of the best is estatesales.org ;VES has been in the top 10 most views companies category in Texas month after month and we are the only company in the Austin area to do so. I’m most proud of the fact that if you want a company that gives full transparency with no hidden fees you come to us. We will make you the most money. In the past few years we have had 6 figure sales in a single weekend! We will continue to strive to be the best and give our clients the best experience.
How do you think about happiness?
My partner Luisa makes me the happiest guy in the world! . From when I met her in 2016 when only knowing her for two months and asked her to go to California with me, she has been “my ride or die”
Without her as my life and business partner none of this would have been possible so I am happy that we chose each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vintiqueestatesales.com
- Instagram: @vintiqueestatesales
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VintiqueAustin/
