US garage sales booming as recession grinds on

[LahoreEstate]

Sunday, August 16, 2009
GILBERT, Ariz: Cathy and Malcolm Robbins have held garage sales before at their home in suburban Phoenix. But this time it is not about getting rid of clutter, it’s about survival.

A trained nurse, Cathy is unemployed. Malcolm, a self-employed industrial appraiser, is not finding the work that he needs.”The money we make here is going to be used to pay bills.

The checks aren’t coming in like they used to,” said Malcolm as he sat out among the stuffed animals and nutcracker soldiers on offer as pinched consumers hunt for bargains in the sizzling desert heat.

The Robbins are not alone. As companies fold or shed jobs in the worst recession in decades, a growing number of Americans are saying a fond good-bye to their belongings at garage sales to generate some badly needed cash.

Nearly every weekend, listings appear online and on handmade signs taped to lampposts and propped up on street corners coast-to-coast, jostling for space with those announcing foreclosure sales and bank repossessions. One barometer of their rising popularity is a three-fold leap in garage sales listings on free online classified advertising service Craigslist in the past two years the firm attributes to the struggling economy.

Alfonso Morales, an “open air market” specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said more and more people are trying to turn bric-a-brac -miscellaneous small articles collected for sentimental or decorative interest into cash to cope with the harsh new reality of lost jobs, slashed hours and dwindling incomes. “People have always been interested in face-to-face commerce, but they are more motivated now because of tough economic times,” he said.

Morales said the items being sold off were often acquired when credit was readily available and the American consumer bought early and often.

As the downturn grinds on, government figures released Thursday showed more Americans signed up for jobless benefits last week, while consumers spent less while shopping in July.

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