Estate sales and real estate auctions in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville and Davidson County have shared one metropolitan government since 1963, so a Nashville sale can land almost anywhere along the Cumberland River. It might be a downtown condo, a brick house in Germantown, an Edgefield Victorian or a ranch house on a big lot. We sell land, condos, houses and lots, but the method has to fit.

Auction fits when the property is one of a kind, when several buyers are likely to compete, or when an estate or divorce needs a transparent sale. At auction, "the market sets the price rather than the firm pretending to know it." A standard house with plenty of recent sales nearby is usually better off on the regular market, and we say so up front.

Metro has more than one kind of historic overlay, and they do different things. Edgefield became the first historic zoning district in 1978. A historic preservation overlay reviews most exterior work. A neighborhood conservation overlay is the least restrictive type, and it covers new construction, additions, demolition and moving a building. A National Register listing is honorary and does not change property rights.

Those overlay rules stay with the house after the hammer falls. Metro also reviews demolition requests for buildings from before 1865, even outside an overlay. Ask Metro's historic zoning staff what applies to your parcel before it goes to market, since bidders take the property as is.

Nashville estates can turn up things you will not find in many other towns: records, instruments, stage clothes, signed posters and studio gear. Send a few photos before anyone hauls anything off. Some of it belongs in our auction. Some belongs with a specialist or another auction house, and we will say so.