The BufWiki Garage Sales page1 provides information about buying (or selling) at a garage sale.
Buffalo, as a city with relatively low rent rates, and several colleges, has a lot of moving in/moving out going on year round. There are a lot of opportunities to get good stuff at garage sales, especally in the suburbs, where some of the 'Super Suburbinates' live.
Garage sales in Buffalo do not have hard fast rules of etiquette. Bartering is allowed (and encouraged by "die-hard garage-salers"), though many people in Rochester don't seem to realize that you can. You should try bartering at garage sales in the area, if not for the sake of saving money, at least for the sake of watching people's reactions.
An important idiom to take to heart while shopping at garage sales is "the early bird gets the worm." Even if a garage sale is advertised to begin at nine or ten in the morning, people will show up at quarter to eight or earlier to camp out and wait for stuff to be put out or the garage to open. Regardless of whether things are priced yet or not, once that garage door opens, the sale is on, as far as garage salers are concerned.
Giving that there are a number of Goodwill, Salvation Army, and other second hand stores, garage stuff often ends up there after the owner tries selling it for a Saturday or two. Several progressive and Community groups hold garage sales, but at the moment, there is no central list of them.
Garage sale aficionados often look for church sales and neighborhood sales. Why go to one garage sale when you can go to a combined sale held at a church or other building, or a block with 5, 10 or even 50 garage sales, including lemonade stands, hot dogs, and baked goods.
Neighborhood Sales
Organization Sales
Garage Sale Resources
Comments
Footnotes
1. Drawn from the RocWiki Page
