It hasn't changed here. They are all here early and in and out all day for 2 to 3 days.

Move to Iowa. People will get you out of bed to be the first one to paw through your stuff. We just had a 3 day 3 county following HWY 3 yard sale. I went the first day because I've learned if you wait until the second all the good stuff is gone. By day 3 you may as well stay home. The very first year I found a truck load of treasurers but these past few years have not been as lucrative. I think everyone cleans out more now that they do this sale twice a year. I bought about 30 blankets and flannel sheets to use as quilt filler at church. A couple of dollars worth of "stuff" for me. I spent less than $40.

Craigslist, eBay and a more mobile lifestyle ... when a couple of 30-somethings are cleaning out they have way less interesting stuff.

I usually drive by. If I see piles of clothes and kids toys I keep going. So if you have good items put them out in front. If you are selling kids clothes make sure only a minimum amount is clearly visible from the road. Pretty much if you have a mix of items make sure some of each is represented in front. If people driving by can only see one type of item then people looking for that item will be the only ones to stop.

This is a typical display for me

How often do you have garage sales? If it is frequently, shoppers may already know what you are trying to sell and not stop. Depending on where you live, look for a small farmer's market or flea market and set up there one weekend. You may get a whole different set of shoppers.

(that horse plate would sell for under a dollar here.)

I would definitely stop at your sale.

There are some people in town that have a perpetual garage sale every weekend. I suspect they troll others, buy cheap and try to flip. I rarely see anyone looking at their stuff.

Do you still have the little blue travel case?

I don't have sales every weekend. Weather permitting, I do it when we have our community-wide garage sale in May and on Labor Day weekend. I just had a 5-day sale (started last Thursday) and it was dismal this year. I do have a slight turnover because when I sell something, I bring out new items. And I still have the blue travel case. It's part of a 3-piece Flightway luggage set. That horse plate features Man O'War - a great race horse around 100 years ago, so the plate is a real antique.

Wow, debodun, I wish our local garage sales were like yours. All I see are clothes and toys around here, neither of which I'm interested in. I love that Man O'War plate, and the chairs!

I used to hold one per year, with furniture, garden items, artwork, etc, but it started to not be worth the hassle, so now I donate everything (or sell furniture on CL). As in your case, I was lucky to get a handful of people stopping in.

If I ever do one again, I'll try to get the entire street involved. I love finding neighborhood garage sales, and just walking from house to house.

I like the quality of the things you have there, if I were to have room for another larger painting (I don't and won't with my move), I'd be tempted by the seaside one. Painting those chairs? No way! I like them as is and would be tempted by a couple.

Last summer I stopped off at a tag/garage sale in my neighborhood and the guy selling was saying how few people were dropping by. He said he did all the proper advertising, and as far as road signs went, I saw several of those. While he had childrens' toys out, there were other things as well. I bought a set of Japanese condiment/sauce serving bowls for $5.

Our local flea market seems as busy as ever, so I'm not sure what the story is. I hope when I host my garage sale soon that things change here -- it has been over ten years since my last one!

Here's what I call a Japanese table set (2 lidded cruets, 3 piece mustard jar, salt & pepper shakers and tray - 10 pieces) and the mark on them. I'm asking $30 for it.

Her's a close-up of the seascape. The artist is on the national register and it's a real painting, not a print.

If it just happened the one time, I'd take it with a grain of salt:

Maybe it was the first nice week-end day after a long period of scorching temps/rain/ice, maybe it was a holiday week-end & everybody was at the lake, etc.

Here, garage sales start on Thursday or even Wednesday, & the early birds & re-sellers go to them before the general public has a day off from work.

Love that Japanese table set!

edited to add:

forgot to say, I live in an old town whose week-ends sometimes include antique "walks", tours of historic houses, etc. Those week-ends are the best for garage sales if you have vintage & antique items to sell.

debodun While chalk painted items sell well and I do my fair share of chalk painting I limit it to items that need it. Tables that the veneer is missing chunks or that anyone has done other irreparable damage to such as I have a vanity that was stripped and then partially spray painted. It has veneer so this was lifting in spots but whole. I glued it back down but the spray paint can't be stripped so painting is the only option. It however will be done in a high gloss black to go with it's art deco lines. A Low dresser that has been used, abused and put away wet will have a funky distressed turquoise chalk paint finish.

The photos I posted were just the things I had out in the
yard. Here are some of the things on the porch:

I've had more than a few people stop, run over to the free boxes and leave without even looking at the tables. It's like saying "Unless it's free, I'm not interested."

There are idiots everywhere. But my nephew makes fairy gardens and is constantly looking for things like badly chipped plates. He breaks them up to make cobblestone paths. Old cords that are alone or just not safe he strips to use the wire inside. He has us all poking through free boxes.

The neighbors across the street held one this past weekend. I had to laugh -- first thing you see is all the clothing and toys for toddlers. I wouldn't have stopped in except that they're my neighbors. I ended up with a kitchen whisk. Since I'm trying to downsize myself, I didn't want to look too closely at a lot of goods. At any rate from what I saw, little was as nice as debodun's garage sale collection.

I wish my neighbors would come over. I am constantly surprised on how many walk by and don't even look. You'd think they just glance out of curiosity. It's like they have horse blinders on. I guess if they don't haven any money, what would be the point? Everyone around here seems to be broke for some reason. One young woman stopped and picked out a pile of stuff that came to over $20. She said that she only had $3 on her. I told her to go to an ATM machine. She said she'd just been to one and that's all she had left after grocery shopping. I went through the pile and pulled out things until I got it down to $3, but then she wasn't interested in what was left and said. "I was hoping you'd sell the whole bunch for $3." I refused and she left without buying a thing. This is just an example of what I have to deal with when having a garage sale. One man told me that I drive too hard a bargain and should be more willing to negotiate prices. Well, the way I feel is - if you go in the grocery store to by a can of corn and see it's 89¢, you don't take it to the checkout and ask, "Will you take 39¢ for this?".

No wonder I'm not selling much. The local senior center had a "this & that" sale last Saturday. It was in the same building where I pick up meals to deliver to seniors, so on Monday I moseyed over to look. There were 5 or 6 long tables of items that hadn't sold for $1 or less! Someone that was there said hardly anyone showed up. Something is going on around here keeping people away from rummage and tag sales.

I've always priced my items higher than the amount I will accept, because people always ask me to lower the price. This is the norm around here.

I used to frequent garage sales 2-3 years ago. Not anymore. I've realized that avoiding clutter makes my life much easier. In my area, it seems that the second hand market is over-saturated and many people simply don't have much interest in tchotchkes and stuff.

There's a lot of talk about home decluttering, leaner living, closet purging and cutting down on shopping. Even my teenage DS and his friends have no interest in hanging out at the nearby mall. People read books on their Kindles instead of going to a bookstore, compost instead of buying fertilizers, disconnect their rainwater spouts and set up barrels in their backyards.

Call it a Konmari effect. There are almost 500 holds on 260 copies of Marie Kondo's book at our local library.

debodun - I never ask to lower a price but if they notice I'm looking at something with intent interest, the tag/garage saler will often ask if I want if for X amount less. If it is something I really do want, rather than just considering one way or the other, I am inclined to accept.

PS, that seascape -- where was that painted?

Me too. In fact I flea market. I can't garage sale as I'm at the end of a dead end road way out in the country. Instead I find old items at auction, clean repair and sometimes refinish then put them in a shop, part flea market part antique shop. They are open 7 days a week, staffed and with surveillance cameras. She also mans a Facebook page and Creig's List page. So all I do is bring stuff and arrange it and collect my cash.

There are vendors that have standing 20 -50 % off. (I occasionally will run a 10% off sale, for a very limited time). And I do well. To my mind our regulars are there more often. When they see 50% off and it is a constant. It's like a clearance rack, You may find something but it also says "this has been hanging around too long without anyone really wanting it, and I want it gone too."

This week I'll be swapping one of my fav dinnerware sets . Taylor Smith Boutonienre with a service for 12 in Paler Selb mue19 .

The T.S. will stay there, but a less prominent space. Sometimes just moving something will trigger a sale.

artemis_ma - I have no idea the setting of the painting.

I can never get the neighbors to have a sale at the same time I do. Even on community-wide sale day. The people across the street used to have sales, but they haven't done it in about 3 years now. Next man next door also has sales once in a while, but when I suggested we both have ours at the same time, his answer was "I'm not going to compete with you!"

Many people I know put their stuff on CL or Freecycle community boards now. Less hassle than setting up a garage sale and sitting all day in your driveway. Small things are either put in a "Free" box on a curb or hauled off to Goodwill. There are a couple of high income enclaves near me that hold annual community sales. Those neighborhood sales have been dwindling over the past 3 or 4 years. Last summer I drove through one of them, and it was mostly pots-n-pans, children's toys and clothes. Very little furniture or other substantial stuff compared to 5 yrs ago. Fewer households participating as well.

There's also a low income neighborhood close by. They don't hold community sales, but the residents often have garage sales in summer. I guess the poorer folks try to squeeze some cash out of their stuff. I never go there because it's mostly junk.

We joined with our neighbors last year to have a yard sale. We put signage up and advertised in the paper.

We had people cruising by the day before!

There was a small crowd at the beginning, but it was overall very civilized and even, dare I say, enjoyable!

Here's a new one - a woman contacted me about some items I has posted on Facebook for sale and asked if I'd consider trading garden herbs for the merchandise. I'm not sure what herbs she was willing to trade (legal "herbs" I hope) or what the exchange ratio is on that (one bunch of basil for a lace tablecloth?), but I refused. I only know the exchange value of money.

Just a nice topic

Price of gas and trying to declutter my own house keep me away from sales.

Our neighbor does a huge sale about three times a year. He insists on calling it an 'annual' tag sale. He mostly has antiques, and I buy a few items at each sale. He gets hundreds of people, despite not advertising other than signs. We are WAY out in the country, too.

We had a big sale of mostly junk when we moved from FL, and did pretty well. Everything we didn't sell went to GoodWill. We had plenty of early traffic, but we were setting up an hour before daylight, so nobody got us out of bed.

I cruise by sales all the time without stopping. When it's a bunch of clothes, kid's toys, and beat up newish furniture, I don't stop.

debodun, I'd have stopped, even to just admire your beautiful old brick gal!!

I'm an old house lover to the bone....:0)

Wanna buy it? It was built in 1897 and could use a few updates. Here's a better photo.

Had a sale this weekend. Only 2 people stopped! What really gets me is the people I mentioned that I'd be having a sale and said, "Oh, I'll stop by." actually did, I'd have had a yard full of people. Why do they promise than not follow through?

Nice place! I have an old brick one myself & she needs work too. Slow & steady wins the race, I suppose!