You see them fairly often here, too. I'm not a garage sale person - either on the buying or selling end. But many many people here have summer homes, cottages, camps and can use dishware, pots & pans, books, kids' clothes, gardening equipment, tools, assorted home goods. This is also a university/college town - dorm rooms to fill as well as the houses parents buy for their kids while attending any of the institutions here.

Since I don't stop and browse though, I don't know if people are selling premium goods at premium prices - somehow doubt it.

One of the local rags publishes a big list of garage sales every week and the individual ads usually list the goods being offered.

Garage sales are alive and well, but almost everybody has TOO MUCH STUFF, so they don't buy like they used to. Even donation charities are very picky now and the library doesn't want used books.

They are alive and well in Iowa. People do expect give away prices, though. They know your old stuff is better than the Wal Mart crap but they want it for nothing. Have you tried a consignment shop?

Garage sales are popular here. Maybe try Craigslist or Ebay for your antiques and other items. We've done well on Craigslist. You just should meet someplace like the supermarket or Walmart. Never let someone come to your home.

Yes debodun, everything has changed. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. And the time for antiques' heaven has passed.

I have lived long enough to see two drastic highs and lows in the antiques market, so this is nothing new. The same can be said of the housing market, where the agents said that houses never decrease in value, they said the same thing in the early 1970s, and just like then, in 2008 the bubble burst and houses went down to their 'true' value.

I saw a 2010 Antiques Road Show where the lady had a beautiful Persian carpet they valued at $7,000, but the expert added that a few years earlier it would have been worth $15,000 -a 50% decrease. If the high end of antiques can't hold it's value, then tchotchkes and collectibles certainly won't.

It's been 6 years and many collectors and dealers are still stuck in the mindset of the inflated prices of the past and are either ignorant or in denial of what their stuff is worth on today's market. That has also helped to ruin the fun of buying and shopping at garage sales-so people stopped going. Sellers were not realistic about what people are currently willing to pay.

FYI, a quality antique is only worth what somebody will pay for it, not what you might have gotten for it 10 years ago. Your eBay selling assistant couldn't sell the stuff (and eBay is almost wholesale now) that should tell you more about the market than anything.

by debodun: "What's changed - the economy, people's taste, online shopping, something else?"

Yes all of that has changed. I could probably write a 500 page book on how and why it has changed. Suffice it to say, "wake up and smell the coffee."

Virtual yard sales are very popular here. You can find on in your area on Facebook.

Thanks for your detailed reply, Lilylore. BTW - Happy Birthday.

Where I live there are still many garage sales, but most people don't end up selling much. I agree people have too much "stuff" and are mostly browsing, hoping to find something of great value amongst the used household items. I had a garage sale last summer and someone wanted to buy my $200 camera for $5 and another tried to tell me that I was asking way too much ($25) for a small ornate dresser and tried to bully me into selling it cheaper. I won't do another garage sale. I'll give it away first.

Acadiafun, I used to buy and sell. I also held 'famous' garage sales that people wanted to be on the list, I would call or send a post card to announce the next sale.

I had many dealers come to my sales, and I never let them bully me. I know there was some little old lady out there that they might be able to intimidate, so I wouldn't 'encourage' them. It I had a chest of drawers at $50 and they said that dreaded phrase "I'll give you..." -that was the end of it for them. You don't 'give' me anything. I sell to you. You buy from me. There is no 'giving'. Those dealers would probably not be buying from me and were in for a rude awakening.

It went like this:
"I'll give you 20 bucks"
"I'll take $55"
"But you're going the wrong direction..."
"Okay, then how about $60"
"But it's marked $50"
"Is it?" I walk over, remove the tag, and replace it with one for $65.
"Okay, I'll give you the $50 bucks"
"But it's $70 now" and again I remove the tag.

Every time the bully opens his mouth, on anything, the price goes up. There was no "three strikes rule", One strike you were out, and I wasn't going to explain the rules if you were too dumb to figure it out. Insult me, try to bully me, "I'll give you..." and I no longer cared what you had to say, what sweet talking tactic you tired next or what attitude adjustment you might make after that. The deed was done. Now, the less words the better for the buyer, and any haggling after the initial insult was going to be met with a higher price.

The smart ones kept their mouth shut and stopped haggling, picking out stuff that they were willing to buy at the listed price. The fools, got more of the same for every thing they tried to haggle with.

Of course, if a customer was nice, and said "Would you be willing to accept" or "Can you come down on this" I would be willing to bargain with them and have fun, even right in front of the jerks. But once any dealer came to the sale with a bully attitude, every time they opened their mouth, it was going to cost them.

The thing is, anything those buyers wanted to snap up as the first customers was going to sell at my asking price sometime later in the day, guaranteed; and if I forgot to re-tag it back down to $50 after placing a $70 tag on it, I often got the $70 for it within a few hours, anyway. Those jerky dealers were just telling me what was a popular item and what was priced too low to begin with, in case I didn't know, is how I looked at it. They just had a poor way of expressing them selves.

I remember at least one time when I told a dealer to leave and I would not sell to them. "You can't do that, that's against the law..." "I'm calling the police, you can wait to discuss it with them, or leave my property quietly right now" and then you get your phone out. If you have to, you pretend to dial 911 "hello, I'm holding a garage sale and I have a man/woman on my property who I feel threatened by. He refuses to leave, could you send a police officer. yes, He is raising his voice, making threatening gestures and refuses to leave, I feel like I am in danger." And if that doesn't evict the jerk, make the call for real. I only had to make the threat of a call and only once, and it worked. "No, no, no, don't call, I'm leaving. I'm leaving" over his shoulder "geeze what a b..."
"thank you"

This post was edited by Lilylore on Mon, Jan 5, 15 at 16:35

Lilylore I like the way you work. I guess I don't have thick skin because I was really irritated. And I am sure that two guys were scouting my house for theft when they kept asking if I had any tools and tried to walk into the back of the garage. The items for sale were in the drive and partially in the front of the four car garage. I had to tell them "there's nothing back there" really loud to get their attention. Then I gave them the stink eye to let them know I was suspicious. Never. Again.

I had two Eastlake caned seat chairs out last year with a $35 each price tag. A couple of young bucks stopped and offer me $5 for BOTH. I told them where to put their $5. Sometimes a person will ask if I can do better on the price, so I say "Certainly!" and make it a higher one.

Posted by debodun:"I had two Eastlake caned seat chairs out last year with a $35 each price tag. A couple of young bucks stopped and offer me $5 for BOTH. I told them where to put their $5. Sometimes a person will ask if I can do better on the price, so I say "Certainly!" and make it a higher one."

That seems a little extreme, and combative. I don't expect young bucks to know about antiques. But even more so, I don't expect most sellers to understand that the antiques market has taken a serious down-turn.

When I have had sales, I was never insulted by the amount that someone offered, but how they make the offer. Saying "I'll give you..." is an insult, Asking "Can you do better?" is not. I don't know the persons circumstances, perhaps $5 is what their budget should allow? Or perhaps they are poor negotiators, and have watched too much of that Pawn Stars fake reality show, and have picked up poor haggling habits -thinking they have to start low to get the best price.

When I had a sale it was stuff I wanted to unload -that was the objective. So, I priced it to sell. I was a picker and sold to dealers and I had a shop for a while, and did the flea market route -so I had an idea of what dealers would pay. If I had 20 pairs of Salt & Pepper shakers and marked them $2 a set, I would have an idea of what I would do for the lot, so if a dealer picked out the 8 best pairs and asked what I could do on them, I'd have a figure in mine mind, I might even tell them before they asked "If you're getting that many, you can have all 20 for $1.50 a pair, that'd be 30 bucks".

My main rule with sales was that I would try to leave a little wiggle room for serious buyers. I could waste my time and take the stuff to several different antique dealers, or wait for them to come to me and save gas and time.

I also price things 'each' and in multiples, so with a stack of identical plates I'd hang a sign. The price difference may even seem a little ridiculous. "Plates $2ea or 10 for $5". People thought they were getting a great deal and didn't feel a need to haggle, I already did it for them. But inevitably, someone was going to ask to pay $4 for 10. I wouldn't get mad, no. Some folks feel it doesn't hurt to ask, so they do. I would pretend that their math skills weren't too good and I'd say "I'm sorry, you can buy 2 for $4, or the best I can do is 10 for $5", if their math was really poor, and they had to ask again, I would repeat the same thing, "No, 2 for $4, 10 for $5" The crip-crap that I really didn't want to box up again at the end of the sale, I always priced like that. If you are only going to buy a couple of plates, your wasting my time, if you are going to buy a stack, I'll give you my best price up front.

If people feel like they are getting a deal and had a good time they tell their friends. And if I had an item that no one was paying much attention to, but I really didn't want to pack up again, I would come down on it the first day, or the first time some weird young buck picked it up, looked at it and said "cool" "It's marked $10, but you can have that for $5." But my main rule was I came down on multiples and big purchases. If someone collected $40 worth of junk and didn't even ask to haggle, I might give them a discount at the till anyway -again, because they will tell their friends. "Oh, I had that marked $10? You're buying so much stuff, you can have it for $5." See why people wanted to be on my mailing list?

For the most part, on the high end and antique items I didn't come down until later on in the first day or on the second day. But if I had a couple of hot items at a very good price, like beautiful Eastlake caned seat chairs for $35, I expected folks to want to haggle before they bought them. It makes them feel better. So, I might price them at $40 ea, and if some young bucks said "Will you take $5" I wouldn't be insulted, I would give them my come down price "tell you what, $70 for the pair" If they made a counter offer and it was the beginning of the day, I would tell them "I haven't had them out very long, and I was planning on going half price (or what ever) tomorrow, if you come back tomorrow and they haven't sold, you can have the both of them for $40."

The next day I might change my mind and not even put them out, or if the young bucks come back, tell them "someone offered $50 for the pair yesterday before I closed and said they would be back with the money this morning. I told them the first person to pay me $50 today will get them, those folks haven't come back yet, so if you want to snatch them up, you can have the pair for $50 right now." But I usually kept my word, If I quoted a 'tomorrow' price, I sold it for that the next day. And if it was for an item I just wasn't sure what kind of interest there might be for it, I would say, come back tomorrow, I am going to mark everything down tomorrow, we can wheel and deal then. If it was an item that every early-bird dealer and collector picked up and asked what I could do on it, I knew it would sell eventually and I might even re-tag it higher after the first few hours, so I could come down half off the next day or later in the day. If it's marked $12, and every dealer offers $6 after I say I'll come down to $10, then I would mark it up to $20, so the next dealer to ask, I tell them "the best I can do is half price." Sometimes it sold to a collector for the $20 or $15.

Lilylore I love the way you do garage sales.
I think the Great Recession has made a dent in what people will spend.
I love going to garage sales, but between haggling and theft probably won't do another one. Items that have more value I sell on Craigslist, items with little value get given away.

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We used to have a great time at the neighborhood garage sales years ago. Three of us would get together and put all our stuff out on the designated day. Realtors advertised and put up the signs. We got lots of traffic and sold almost everything. Now its a bust. If you don't have a whole driveway or yard full of stuff, people don't want to stop and look. Some dealers will roll down the window and say "do you have any ( whatever they are looking for )?" and then drive on. But lately whoever stops by wants everything super cheap. I mean just a few dollars for really nice stuff. It wasn't worth getting it out there and sitting all day to tell everyone no you wont give your stuff away. I have seen other sales where clothes and toys were 1 or 2 dollars but the quality was very poor. Maybe that's what is expected now.

I noticed all the good quality items aren't at the thrift stores any more. And the prices are up on stuff that is in poor shape. Even magazines used to be 25 and 50 cents are now 100 and more. I think people aren't giving away as much or else people aren't buying new like they used to and make due with what they have.

I loved ebay in the early days when there were all sorts of sellers with everything from all over the country. I found things like what my grandparents used to have or my folks had. It was fun. Now its all wholesale stuff like someone else said. Ebay wants to be Amazon now. Craigslist has been so so for me. Mostly I feel it just isn't safe for larger purchases.

I had another sale last weekend when we had our community-wide garage sale weekend. I'm in a new house now - half the size of my old one, I just don't have the room anymore to keep everything. The basement is packed wall to wall with boxes, so I dragged everything out. Three days to set up. Sold $52.50. Many cars stopped, but few bought and when they did, it wasn't anything priced over $3. What a job lugging that all back down to the basement! Here's a small sample:

@debodun You have some nice vintage and collectible pieces. I have two neighbors who have their annual sales at same time as each other with most of their things in that category. they advertise their sales as ”estate sale’ because one of them has many vintage furniture items too. One of these neighbors hosted Downton Abbey tea parties & so had many sets of serving pieces, cups / saucers & the like. She was also a quilter. She advertised her sales as tea sales & quilt fabric sales. Both also posted pictures of many items in the sale on sites like NextDoor / Craigs List & the like under their garage sale sections. Their sales have always been very successful. They hold them Wed / Thurs / Fri or Thurs / Fri / Sat.