On site garage sales

Pat

Does anyone hold on site garage sales for tenants to "unload" unused items?  We have a few asking about this, but all we see are the problems and headaches - not sure if it is really a good idea - especially with inside units.

Dtinfla

No, not a good idea!  Only problems and headaches.

MamaDuke7

I did it once.  It was a very busy day.  Everyone had fun.  Didn't lose any customers over selling their stuff.

We had a lot of people come through and see the facility that otherwise wouldn't have, but as far as I know, we never gained a rental from them, either.

Those with inside units were required to set up outside, and no one complained about that.  That helped us with being able to keep an eye on all the non-customers on the property.

I stayed outside the entire day driving around and around on the golf cart, interacting with everyone and making my presence well known.

We were able to sell almost everything from a "manager special" unit where we had been accumulating stuff for the next auction, and we got more than selling it at auction, so that was about the only financial benefit.  However, the happy customers was a really great thing.  It built community.  But it was a lot of work!

Orkocean

Did it at the last company. We had 4 properties up and down a road that were ran from 1 office. We used our farthest property down to operate garage sales at. We started at every other month, then monthly, now from keeping in touch with people there they do it every 2 weeks. Smaller college/country town, people loved it, we bumped up the frequency of doing it so that people would rent the units normally to use instead of renting just for the weekends. Long as you organize how it runs it's pretty easy to deal with.

teamcapitola

We really want to; we envisioned having a BBQ with hot dogs and stuff, a whole community sort of thing.

One call to the city regarding permits pretty much sunk (sank?) that dream... between the permit fees and the general "NOT going to happen" attitude, we shelved the idea.

Orkocean

TBH we never even reached out to the city, but we never heard from them either after it became well known and even had stories ran about it on the college newspaper. 

Would a "customer appreciation" event need a permit? I mean if they happen to display their stuff and people buy it, is it your problem? How many times have people had customers post stuff for sale on craigslist and had people show up to buy it from them? Surely they don't need a permit for that.

87ambie

We have a customer driven Garage Sale every year (sometimes twice a year) at each of our 6 locations. It's a great experience and sometimes tenants even end up upgrading their locker. We get the opportunity to interact with our tenants in a social setting. One fall we combined the garage sale with a customer appreciation day. We grilled hot dogs (for donation to a local charity) and gave out cake. The main concern was access for vehicles. Some of our tenants opt out of marketing notices so they don't know that the garage sale is taking place. We restrict vehicle access to the lot for safety reasons. While almost every tenant understands and is reasonable there is usually one or two that make a fuss. However, everyone tends to have fun and gets new treasures from the experience. We even had one gentleman who found a full sized scythe one year. 

teamcapitola

Orkocean said:

TBH we never even reached out to the city, but we never heard from them either after it became well known and even had stories ran about it on the college newspaper. 

Would a "customer appreciation" event need a permit? I mean if they happen to display their stuff and people buy it, is it your problem? How many times have people had customers post stuff for sale on craigslist and had people show up to buy it from them? Surely they don't need a permit for that.

You don't know the city of Capitola, Ca..... we got fined for having our "now open" banner (2ft by 6ft) up one day past the permit date.

i43storage

teamcapitola said:

Orkocean said:

TBH we never even reached out to the city, but we never heard from them either after it became well known and even had stories ran about it on the college newspaper. 

Would a "customer appreciation" event need a permit? I mean if they happen to display their stuff and people buy it, is it your problem? How many times have people had customers post stuff for sale on craigslist and had people show up to buy it from them? Surely they don't need a permit for that.

You don't know the city of Capitola, Ca..... we got fined for having our "now open" banner (2ft by 6ft) up one day past the permit date.

@teamcapitola - sounds like you need to move

PSC

I think it depends on your area. We do one twice a year. 
It's a GREAT hit with our customers. We've never had anyone move out. We have a lot of surrounding neighborhoods that restrict the homeowner's from having garage sales. We actually gained a couple of customers just for that reason.