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Staging your house for top dollar
Staging your house just before it goes on the market can make a dramatic improvement in your sales. Staging's goal is to highlight the home's strengths and downplay its weaknesses. House staging is the biggest house-effect out there and for good reason: it works!
8 Staging Steps
8 easy steps that you can use for each room in your home to stage it quickly and professionally.
Staging Your Dining Room
Dining rooms were once a symbol of wealth. Ordinary middle class people ate in the kitchen. Then every new home had to have a dining room and people found out that it wasn't a lot of fun eating in the dining room every night.
Home >
De-cluttering
with a garage sale
Garage sales, yard sales and moving sales
Whatever you call them, they're a great way of ridding your life of all those trinkets you've managed to collect over the years and collect a few dollars in the process.
There's an old adage: one man's junk is another's treasure. Well, you've got plenty of junk and there are plenty of treasure hunters out there-- it's a real win-win solution.
Good garage sales don't just happen by themselves. They take some planning, and marketing. Take a little time and following a few key steps will make all the difference. Nothing complicated or difficult.
Step 1 — Select your inventory.
This should have been done in the decluttering process. Condition of your merchandise should be the best possible. Don't try to sell broken items. Make sure everything has been cleaned of dust and dirt. Don't skimp on the cleaning -- it makes a BIG difference. Check appliances to make sure they work. Have an electrical outlet nearby so buyers can test appliances.
Step 2 — Publicity and promotion.
Get the word out as much as possible. That means newspaper advertising (both local and the city editions). Run the ads 2 days before your sale date. Splurge a little on the ad with a slightly larger ad to stand out from the rest of your competition.
Putting out flyers and signs. You don't want to have "just" another garage sale. You want to have something special that will distinguish your sale from all the other sales that some people have every weekend.
Instead of having just a garage sale, say something like huge moving sale... everything must go!
The flyer should include everything you have in your classified newspaper ad, plus a map and directions. Print these on bright colored paper (not red). Post these in neighborhood stores and groceries. If you have some children wanting to help out, have them canvas the neighborhood and put one of the flyers in the door (never in the mailbox). You can even have a special preview sale the night before just for the neighborhood.
Step 3 — Setting up shop
Arrange your items by category. All clothes together, tools together, knickknacks together etc. Make your stop easy to move about.
Dress up the shop with helium-filled balloons, play some music. Dress up your shop attendants (family and friends helping out) so they are part of the festivities. Serve refreshments (lemonade and cookies are great and are very inexpensive). You can even serve donuts for some ridiculous low price (say 3 cents each).
Step 4 — Pricing
Garage sale pricing is not rocket science. You probably have a pretty good idea of what you'd pay for an item if you were at someone else's garage sale. This is not the time to be greedy and you're definitely not doing this to send your kids to college. The goal is to get rid of as much clutter from your house as possible, have some fun doing it and maybe making enough to take your family out for a great night on the town.
Use bright colored (removable) stickers on every item so prices are easy to see. Whatever price you put on an item, remember, part of the garage sale etiquette is to haggle! Even if it's only a nickel, someone will want to haggle you down to 2 cents. Don't be insulted-- it's part of the great American Garage Sale tradition. If you have an item that you feel you must sell at a minimum price, then you probably shouldn't be putting it in this garage sale. If you feel that strongly about the item, run a classified ad just for that item.
Set up your tables the night before. Don't wait until the sale day, because if you did your publicity right, you'll probably be having buyers dropping by well in advance of the starting time.
Additional tips
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Be ready to start -- early!
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Lock your house. It's very tempting for some people to try and do a little shop lifting if given the opportunity.
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Have plenty of change you can keep on your body (a simple coin changer can be picked up at your local office supply store). Keep this with you and not in a cash box that can be easily carried off. One person should be responsible for all cash transactions.
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Set up a packing table to wrap and bag fragile items. This should be next to the checkout table.
ENJOY THE PROCESS and HAVE FUN!