How to Host a Multifamily Yard Sale

Approach all of the neighbors on your block or within a two-block radius from your home about participating in a multifamily yard sale. Make a list of the names of everyone who is interested. Contact everyone on the list and invite them to a planning meeting where you’ll set the date and assign duties in preparation for the event.

Host the meeting at your home and provide refreshments for your neighbors. Offer three or four event dates you think will work. Select a string of dates in seasons when weather is least likely to cause difficulty. Run the sale over a four-day period from Thursday through Sunday.

Decide whether you want to host the yard sale on your street or at a central location such as a church building, community hall or vacant storefront. If you choose a location away from the neighborhood, go with a location in your community that is highly trafficked, easily accessible and is readily visible to passers-by.

Decide what you will do with unsold items. Make sellers responsible for picking them up and taking them home or donated them to a charity like Goodwill, the Salvation Army or a homeless or women’s shelter.

Ask for volunteers to handle advertising, setup, refreshments and customer-service duties, like moving items into cars and cashiering. Create a sign-up sheet for sellers to work the event in three- or four-hour blocks.

Advertise the event in your local paper, on your community television station and with fliers on bulletin boards at prominent locations in your area, such as community centers and libraries. If the local paper runs a garage sale section, advertise it there for two weeks leading up to the event. Continue the ad during the event as well. List the most attractive items being sold on all promotional materials. Recruit volunteers to stand on the street near the entrance to your neighborhood or the location where you’ve decided to host the sale with ads and signs pointing to the sale.

Arrange a few days before the sale for neighbors to drop off items at the sale location. Require the neighbors to price all the items before they drop them off. Have them mark the items with their initials so the cashiers can keep a tally of how much money each seller makes during the event.

Split the cost of administration, such as advertising and facility rental, evenly among all participating sellers.