Come sale away: Strategy and hard work are crucial to garage sales

Kimberley McGee

Monday, July 17, 2000 | 9:04 a.m.

Colorful signs that line Las Vegas Valley streets on any given weekend point the way to countless garage sales.

Deals await! Rare treasures will be discovered!

But if you are hosting one of those garage sales, you want to be sure you are getting the most for your time, money and all of the junk that has collected in your home over the years.

Organizational experts JoAnn Sheldon and Norma Heller have amassed years of experience shopping tag sales and conclude that a successful garage sale is a mixture of good planning, pricing and purging.

Yard sales, tag sales, garage sales -- whatever you call them -- the duo say that selling clutter is a good way to make a little cash, but more importantly a smart way to cleanse your life of the mounting junk that can hold you back from living a more peaceful existence.

As one of many consultant teams for familytime.com's how-to website, the Connecticut entrepreneurs have made a business out of telling other people how to best organize their homes and offices and, in return, make the most of their lives.

"A tag sale can help you organize your home because you don't have all that stuff to (deal) with," Heller said.

Sheldon's first foray into the world of garage sales taught her a valuable lesson.

While living in Manhattan 20 years ago, she joined her neighbors in a street sale and carefully placed her jewelry on display in hopes of making a few dollars over the course of the day.

By mid-morning she was wiped out.

"A guy came early and nearly bought everything, which I thought was great because I wouldn't be out there all day," Sheldon said.

After she closed her empty display table she went about her business, running errands and checking out other street sales. A few blocks from her home some items at another tag sale caught her eye. There was her own jewelry, marked five times higher than what she had sold it for hours earlier.

"It was a hard way to find out but I never made that mistake again," Sheldon said.

Getting started

Sheldon and Heller advise those considering a sale to begin a month ahead of time and gather, sort and clean items, especially machinery, and to make sure everything is in working order.

A week before the sale, price items, organize any helpers and plan an activity for the children to do outside of the home during the sale.

The day before, make sure to have at least $100 in small bills and coins for making change and gather tables to make an attractive display (they don't recommend laying stuff on the ground or in the yard). Cloth over a cardboard box makes a fine temporary display surface.

The day of, gather same-priced items in baskets or boxes and color-code prices to save time, pricing each item individually -- say, blue stickers for $1 items or red for 50 cents.

"Make it easy on yourself, and for the (customers)," Sheldon said.

Be careful, also. If the dusty old paintings pulled out of the attic, furniture or other items tend to go quickly and very early in the sale, prices may need to be altered, she said. Dealers tend to be the first to show up and scoop up under-priced and under-valued items.

"(Sellers) have to be cautious that it's not valuable," Sheldon said. "If you don't know, don't put it out."

Heller suggests taking such items to a consignment shop or an appraiser, which can cost around $50. "It's worth the money," she said. "Certainly the older things I would hold onto."

A last resort is to write "Make an offer" on the item and hope someone who knows the value will bid a reasonable price.

People will pay more for an item they need, such as a lawn mower in the spring. Also, shop for summer items such as patio furniture at the beginning of the summer when the Joneses replace the chaise lounge in an effort to keep up with the neighbors.

A mistake most sellers make, Heller said, is attempting to be paid more for their stuff than its actual street value. It may mean a lot to the owner, but not so much to the person buying it. The two suggest charging around 25 percent of what you paid for it with some area left for negotiation.

"Have a little room in there for haggling. People like to think they are getting a bargain," Sheldon said.

Adult clothes should be marked at 10 percent of their value, but baby garb and children's clothes are hot items, especially in August when the little ones make their way back to school.

The little things

Children can also be time-consumers, and a turnoff. Those little hands may have never touched last year's birthday gift from a long-distant relative, but try to get it past them now and tears are sure to follow.

"When you are trying to get rid of their toys, they decide it's their favorite toy they can't live without," Heller said.

If Junior is pitching a fit on the lawn, it's a turnoff to already weary shoppers. "You don't want those kind of distractions," she said. "It's kind of unbecoming when you are walking up to a tag sale and seeing a child (upset)."

A day at the zoo with the grandparents or even a visit to a neighbor's pool during the sale may save you a lot of time and hassle, and the children won't suffer any separation anxiety from the family's belongings.

Anastasia and Mark Grock of northwest Las Vegas arranged for one of their youngest, a 4-year-old daughter, to operate a lemonade stand when they put on their annual garage sale earlier this month.

"We like to do it once a year, at least that's our plan, just so we can get rid of all this clutter," Mark said.

For the toddlers, these sales can be tough -- not just because their playthings are carted off in the crook of some other child's arm -- but even the family dining table set can be a hard thing to see go.

"It doesn't really bother me too much but I think the little one, it seemed to bother her," Anastasia said. "She was (saying), 'You're selling our chairs!' "

As the family began to lay out their belongings on tables lining the driveway, people were already pulling up. "They came with trailers and cash, they were ready to go," Mark said. "We had tables, a couch, and we started at 7 o'clock and it was gone by 10 a.m."

"We figure they must be a dealer in California, they wanted to deal on everything," Anastasia said.

The kitchen table that they had carved the Thanksgiving turkey on each year was priced at around $100, a fourth of what they paid for it less than five years ago. "They want it for $50 and that kind of upsets you," Anastasia said. "But people are there at garage sales (not to) spend (a lot) of money."

The Grocks are frequent shoppers of local garage sales and know what they would be willing to pay as buyers. "You are going to scare people away if you are too pricey," she said.

Any furniture not sold will be taken to a consignment shop or sold through an ad, she said. The little things, such as maternity clothes and the tykes' bikes, will go to charity.

A garage sale is to rid yourself of things, Anastasia said, not horde them for a few bucks for the next garage sale.

Professional purger

Summerlin resident Dino Justin agrees with Sheldon and Heller that a sale is a good way to cleanse the home, and even rid yourself of possibly valuable- but-burdensome objects that well-meaning relatives have passed down over the years.

"You can't be too attached to it," Justin said. "The next thing you know your life is revolving around this stuff."

Justin holds a garage sale about once a month to cleanse his home of clutter collected from his large purchases made regularly at storage unit auctions.

Expensive gym equipment, stereos and other electronics can be snapped up in lots for very little money. With those lots, however, come many little extras he didn't bargain for -- clothes, shoes, furniture and knickknacks.

When it gets to be too much, he pulls the piles from his garage -- including duplicate electronics or other large items such as furniture -- and makes a little cash back.

Valuable antiques have also crossed his path through the auctions, he said. He has sold $100 items for $30 simply to save himself the hassle of finding the person who was willing to pay what it was worth.

He has witnessed others jockey for his sale items, and watched as friends lose their belonging by fire or theft, and said this has helped him to better understand the exact value of "stuff."

"I've seen people loose all their stuff and I'm thinking, 'It's just stuff,' " Justin said. "(That's) making me get rid of a lot of my stuff I've been carrying around for years and years."

Be prepared, he advises: A garage sale is a lot of work.

Justin rises early on a sale day, usually a Saturday, and spends all day in the hot sun in his driveway haggling with strangers over a pair of shoes or dishes and other everyday items. Hagglers will wear his patience down as the day drags on.

"It gets (to) ya," Justin said. The bottom line, he added, is that the purpose of a garage sale is to sell things.

"If you want to keep it, price it high, or you can say, 'I'm going to get rid of this stuff.' "

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