Yard Sale
Tips
I have been advising people about at yard sales for decades.
Here are my top tips for those of you who love yard sales, both
buyers and sellers.
Many of us have spent a weekend
driving around your favorite
neighborhoods to shop on
other people’s lawns. Typically,
you end up buying a few things
that you really don’t need but
you just can’t leave on a neighbor’s
lawn like a watering can,
vintage poster, and bunch of
silk napkins. You spend $12
and call it a day.
As an expert appraiser, there are many things that people don’t know about
yard sales. The first thing that most people don’t know about yard sales
is that it is big business. You think it is just small time stuff with neighbors
cleaning out the basement of old junk, but in reality, yard sales are the source
of objects that command six figure price tags in other markets far from
someone’s freshly mowed front yard.
That’s right, the elite auction houses and internet markets for art, antiques,
and collectibles use yard sales as a major source for their inventory. And,
many of the major auction houses and smaller estate auction houses regularly
send people known as pickers or runners out to yard sales to get some
of their auction inventory from yard sales.
These people are sent to neighborhoods where the homes have reached the
50-year old mark assuming that their original owners are ready to move on to
assisted living facilities, in with family members, or on to smaller, downsized
residences.
Most unknowing yard sale hosts just think that they are just selling their stuff
to naive shoppers. Well, be warned if you are a yard sale seller or shopper.
Yard sale buyers and sellers are competing with the pros out there. These
big time buyers know what you’ve got, know what it is really worth, know
where to sell it for top dollar, and they are not in the game to tell you that you
just made a big mistake putting out that Eastlake table or vintage Guerlain
perfume bottle on the front lawn for $25 dollars or 50 cents respectively.
And your asking price is all wrong too! These guys are going to get you down
on the asking price and take away something very valuable that was once in
your house as a treasured family heirloom.
Know what you’ve got before you schlep it out to the front lawn. At my mobile
website www.DrLoriV.com, you can send a photo of an object from a yard
sale and I will tell you its value before you buy it. This is how technology will
help you cash in.
32 www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com
EE