5 Tips for having a successful yard sale

In preparation for our move to Korea we have been tasked with the daunting mandate to assess all of the items, junk and memories we have accumulated over our first 4 married years. Our home is fairly large in world standards of a 2 person home. This has not only brought to light how. much. junk. we have, but also illuminated our lifestyle of the accumulation and hoarding of 'things'.To prepare for our move we have had to break things down into 3 categories: things to take to Korea, things to store for when we come home, things to say goodbye to. We decided the best way to down size was to have at least 1 or 2 yard sales/garage sale/moving sale/estate sales. This way we felt better about purging our stuff without just giving or throwing away things that we paid good money for.Note:  We are all about giving to others in need and 'paying it forward' as we would have never made it as young/college students/newlyweds without others generosity. But! We have a lot stuff that our newly starting friends didn't want/need.We had our first yard sale a few weeks ago and made $400! And we didn't even sell HALF the stuff we were trying to sell! (this is actually not great because now we have a ton of stuff leftover. But it just provides more stuff for our next sale!) Needless to say we are a little addicted...I mean really. If we did this a few times a year we could go on a really great vacation or pay off a ton of debt or buy a lot of scrapbooking product! Right?!So here are our top 5 tips to sell like a pro!1. Prep: Slow and steady wins the race. For over a month we slowly went through different rooms of our home and deposited items into a bin in our dining room. (this drove my husband crazy having it out where people could see, but it is a must to have your box out in the open as your are more likely to be more conscious about depositing items in it more frequently). Then on 2 or 3 different days, individually and then together, we did a deep inspection of every room of the house. We opened every drawer, every cabinet, pulled every piece of clothing off the rack and assessed each items value to us. This gives you time to not feel overwhelmed and you can come back to items you are unsure about selling or keeping. Over a few weeks we almost filled our entire dining room using this process.2. Advertising: This is possibly the most important part of having a successful yard sale. About a week before we listed our sale on Facebook, Craigslist and our work email list serves (with approval of course). Look for Facebook groups that are specifically for these types of sales in your area, as it is likely that your friends don't really want to come buy the stuff they see and use at your house all the time. Search for 'your area yard sale' and ask friends for sites like this. There are other sites like Varagesale and a million other I'm sure you can find. We also put out signs on our road by printing  and taping it to cheap yard signs (legibility is key!). We are lucky to live on a busy road that doubles as car rider pick up for an elementary school, so we get a lot of viewers for our signs. Look for busy intersections, shopping centers, schools, etc that you can place signs by that people will see easily. I would say no more than a week ahead so people don't show up on the wrong Saturday disappointed.3. Set up/Display: Set up the day before and treat your display like a store. Set up as much as you possibly can the night before. Depending on your sale area you may need to block your stuff in with your cars and cover with a tarp (which is what we did and everything was safe and dry the next morning). We had advertised our sale to be from 8am to 2pm, people showed up at 7am ready to haggle. Professional yard salers are serious, so be prepared. We were still bringing stuff out as people were there and we were frazzled, so have as much out there as possible well before your 'opening time'. When it comes to actually selling display is the key. Terrell did a great job of displaying and grouping items so things were easy for people to see quickly.Note: There is no way to make a yard sale beautiful like a boutique. Sigh. But you can still be organized.We dedicated separate tables to kitchen items. books/movies. clothes. electronics. etc. We got very resourceful and used everything we had at our fingertips for display. We strung up a clothesline and displayed nice clothing, scarves, hanging lamps, rugs etc. Almost everything on the line sold. We used Terrell's truck bed to display clothes, pillows, blankets, etc. We set up bookshelves to display books. People will dig through piles only to a certain extent. So, its ok to have a stack of items, but make sure they are all the same item (ex towels, t-shirts, jeans, blankets), don't mix them all in together. Make sure items are displayed how they work, not in a pile of parts. People need to see what it is, looks like and does.4. Pricing: You determine your prices before the sale. Yard salers are serious about getting a good deal: for themselves. We've all gone to a yard sale and got something fabulous for a quarter, but truth be told you probably would have paid more for that item had they asked for more. We learned this firsthand. We purchased very cheap price stickers at Wal-Mart and wrote prices on almost everything. About 90% of the time people walked up to us with an item and simply handed over the priced amount. No questions, no haggling. We felt that we priced things very fairly, but there were a few things I watched a lot of people pick up, look at the price and put down immediately. Those things I took the price tags off about halfway through. There will always be people trying to force you down to a lower price and this is totally up to you. But if you have things priced beforehand it makes this much less stressful and you will actually make money, not quarters for your items. *Don't be afraid to price things for what they are worth!5. Top selling items: Towels, blankets, pillows, rugs, linens, lamps, microwaves, 'junk bins', tools, electronics. We could have NEVER guessed what would go as fast as it did! Linens were a hot commodity! Electronics, well displayed and priced, made us the most money out of anything. Terrell created some 'junk bins', priced at $5 that consisted of random tools, screws, spray paint, etc that came out of his workshop/building/car/yard/house supplies. Men love these things! We owned a lot of microwaves, for some unknown reason, which sold for around $25 each. You could also do $5 grab bags: whatever fits in the bag is $5.***HAVE PLENTY OF BAGS! People will need a bag for all the fabulous things they buy! So stock up at the grocery store for the few weeks before!Change: As far as having change goes, that's such a difficult thing to give an exact number for. People normally come with dollar bills and quarters, so you don't need as much as you think. We started with a hundred dollars in change, $20 of that in quarters. This was WAY too many quarters and just too much change. One dollar bills are what we needed the most of and we used a lot of quarters. Next time we may start with $50 in change with tens, fives, ones and quarters. If anyone has gotten this part down to a science let us in on your secrets in the comments!Ps. Did you know that a project life mini kit box is the PERFECT change box?! It has that great magnetic strip and fit into my hoodie pocket. I'm telling you, project life has been the best investment... ;)This was such a freeing experience and put a ton of cash in our pocket. We are looking forward to doing another one right before we leave. What are your top tips for selling or buying at a yardsale? Please share so we can put them to use at our next event!