Advertise your availability as a yard sale organizer in shopping guides and newspapers; post flyers in supermarkets, home supply centers, and community centers. Make contact with professional housecleaning companies and ask them to recommend you to their clients in return for a referral fee. You’ll need to make your services known through ads in newspapers and shopping guides and by distributing flyers and business cards. Any expenses related to actual yard sales will be billable to your client.
Yard sale organizers can charge an hourly fee or ask for a percentage of the proceeds. Plan on several hours of organization, advertising, and setup, plus three or four hours for the sale itself and two hours for cleanup afterward. A typical job, then, might require 8 to 10 hours of your time. If you charge a percentage of sales—perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the take—do so only if you have a reasonable expectation that sales will total more than a few hundred dollars. Any out-of-pocket expenses to advertise the sale or for supplies should be reimbursed by your client.
In dealing with your client’s property, seek to limit your liability for damage or loss to the actual replacement value of items in your possession. You should protect yourself against claims for sentimental value or loss of use. Consult your town clerk for information about local ordinances. Ask an accountant or your tax office for advice about sales tax collection; although it may be common for homeowners to ignore tax laws for yard sales, we are not going to endorse that practice in this book. First of all, sales tax is not an expense to you; however, if you or your client are fined for ignoring the law, the expense is quite real.