Meet Matt Kelly | On-line Auction & Estate Sale Specialist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matt Kelly and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matt, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
After I decided to leave my 25+ year post-production career behind shortly after the pandemic, I wanted to pivot in a different direction and figure out how to turn some of my passions into a business. I love visiting flea markets, antique shopping and consider myself an art enthusiast. It was important for me to find a line of work that would pull me away from the computer screen and find new challenges that would make a positive impact in people’s lives. Starting Nostalgia Estate Sales seemed like the best fit for me. It made sense to combine my affinity for vintage things and my desire to help people navigate through an often difficult emotional period of change in their family’s life or their own.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Early on during the development of Nostalgia Estate Sales, I wanted to be mindful of the items I was selling on behalf of my clients and aimed to curate my estate sales honoring the history and stories behind some of the featured items. I take the copywriting aspect of our social media campaigns very seriously because I want to get the story right about our client’s own journey to this point in time. This approach not only elevates the value of the pieces sold but also provides a more meaningful experience for both buyers and sellers. Who doesn’t like going to estate sales and trying to figure out the story behind a house filled with art, antiques and vintage clothes?

I think the other thing that sets Nostalgia Estate Sales apart from other estate sales companies is our flexibility to work with our clients’ changing needs. Some clients are nervous about the idea of having people rummaging through their house during an estate sale. Sometimes they have a change of heart and don’t want to move out of their house they’ve lived in for 40+ years. Nostalgia for something you cherish is a powerful emotion. That’s why it’s in the name of our company. To address these challenges with people we work with, because no two client situations are the same, we also provide online estate sales auctions for clients who don’t have a set timeline to move out of their home but still need to downsize and declutter their home. For online auctions, we can provide a multi-month window to help sell off possessions for as long as they’re comfortable with and along the way we send them disbursement checks after every auction. I find this approach helps on-the-fence clients warm up to the idea of agreeing to a larger estate sale later on down the road.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love going to local flea markets and looking for vintage clothes, vinyl records or whatever else I can’t live without. A few weekends ago, my wife Lynn and I stumbled upon the Los Feliz Flea Market’s new location in Victor Heights, south of Dodger Stadium. I think the change of scenery from the Flea Market’s previous location at John Marshall High School is a big improvement. The experience is more cohesive, the vibe is great, and the diverse mix of vendors means there’s something to fit every taste. Most of the flea market sits on top of a parking garage, so as an extra bonus you get great sight lines of downtown Los Angeles. If your readers are in the neighborhood, stop by the venerable 95 year old Eastside Italian Deli and order a Spicy Italian Cold Cut sandwich. Once they’re done there, drive through Elysian Park where low riders hold court on the weekends, showing off their tricked out cars and bumping to some great music parked along Stadium Way.

For more great vintage shopping, head on down to the shops along Figueroa Boulevard in Highland Park, including Sun Beam Vintage for home decor and Soft Humans for clothes, which also runs a Vintage Clothing and Craft Fair in the parking lot next door twice a month. I’m glad people in L.A. are repurposing our local parking lots with more creative commerce and useful human activity. But if we must use parking lots for cars, I say fill them with low riders and vintage cars. Around the corner and a few doors down is Hippo, currently my favorite restaurant in L.A. to go to when you feel the need to splurge on special occasions. After dinner, top off the evening by squeezing in a few frames of bowling at the Highland Park Bowl. The recent make over is gorgeous, the food is great and you’ll feel like you were transported back in time to a world where everyone wore matching bowling league shirts.

There’s so much to do in L.A., you can really only see bite size pieces of the city in a week. Focus on one region or cluster of neighborhoods if you’re showing friends around for the first time in L.A. Otherwise you’ll be spending most of your time stuck in traffic!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
When I was struggling to decide what to do with my life and finally leave my career in visual effects behind, my friend Nico Casavecchia gave me a copy of Miranda July’s book “It Chooses You”. As Nico explained, the book helped him as a director, writer and illustrator to break out of occasional bouts of procrastination and appreciate even the smallest acts of creativity as a jumping off point for bigger things. I found that the book helped me get through my own inflection point during my change of careers. I use the book’s observations as a way to affirm my creativity everyday and let new experiences and inspiration “choose me” and see where that adventure leads me to next.

Website: nostalgiaestatesales.com

Instagram: nostalgiaestatesales

Image Credits
Lynn Hobson, Matt Kelly, Jen Anderson