North Liberty Citywide Garage Sales
An epic annual shopping event in the big little city of North Liberty, IowaTHANKS FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR
The 2020 sales were a great success, despite some changes — a new date, social distancing, cashless payments, and more. We are grateful to everyone who participated. If you’d like to tell us how it went, or provide suggestions for future years, take our 2020 Event Survey.
See you in 2021, and here’s hoping everything is a little more “normal” by then!
2020 Event Details
When: July 9-11 (Thursday through Saturday).
Where: North Liberty, Iowa
How to get your garage sale on the list
We’re not taking any more submissions to the list at this time. Submissions were due by July 8 at 6AM.
Be sure to check out Garage Sale 101, where you’ll find do’s & don’ts to have a stellar (and profitable!) garage sale.
How many sales will there be?
Go to the List Stats page to see real-time info about the latest event’s list.
The number of sales in past years:
- 2015: 154 sales
- 2016: 187 sales
- 2017: 216 sales
- 2018: 202 sales
- 2019: 206 sales
- 2020: 108 sales
History
For 35 years, North Liberty held its citywide garage sales in conjunction with the annual Fun Days celebration. Held the second weekend in June, Fun Days included a carnival and fundraisers for local nonprofits. In 2014, citing a weakened bottom line, the planning committee canceled Fun Days indefinitely.
The loss of Fun Days was disappointing, but more upsetting was the loss of the citywide garage sales—the highlight of the weekend for many.
Local resident Lydia Fine had been a shopper at the sales in the past and saw the opportunity to modernize the Garage Sale List by incorporating technology. Fine volunteered to coordinate the garage sale list in 2015, and has been managing the event ever since.
Two of Fine’s friends, Erin Foster and Liz Pearson, began volunteering with the event in 2017, helping Lydia to manage communication around the event, including online promotion and social media.
Since 2015, the sales have grown and the organization of the event has gotten more sophisticated. The first year, sales were Saturday only. Year two expanded to include Thursday and Friday. Citywide Garage Sales now encompasses three days of bargain-hunting nirvana, with more than 200 sales on the list, an interactive Google Map, downloadable lists by day, and a customizable Excel list for the super-planners out there.
If you’re interested in partnering with the citywide garage sales, have a question or suggestion, or just want to say “Hey ladies, nice work!”, email the coordinators.
