used items for the home

[DonJuane]

Well I learned from a very reliable (and lovely) source the way you do it is watch the San Miguel Yahoo group and read of any of the announced garage or moving away sales and you try to find who all is running it and from there I can't really share all the best techniques but let's just say the success of the your experience will all be from previous social bonds and life-long networking skills. I continue to observe my good source and we both are always learning from others.

At most of these things all the quality items have been sold or exchanged before the doors even open. The higher the value of the seller's home, the higher the stakes will be. If you haven't already found an inside method to look over the stuff prior to the morning of the sale door opening, as soon as 10 minutes after the sale starts all the good stuff will be gone and things like quality knives, pots and pans, kitchenware, tools, power equipment and anything else of real value will be long gone. I have often encountered being elbowed out of the way even when first in line because most of the times the very aggressives have historically been looking for a long time before this sale and if you are polite when you enter the seller's home and simply walk into the home rather than being aggressive, there will be some who will elbow you out of the way. Most take a literal leap for the kitchen or the garage. They are so skilled that in a matter of walking 3 steps they have already scoped out everything of value and tucked it into their shopping bag and by the time you have only realized what room you are in. The only time you can win here is when the "bag stuffer" is unloading item by item at the checkout counter and trying to negotiate down each thing in the bag to a lower price. If they refuse to pay a price for something you want and then temporarily set the item over to the side while going on to the next one, at this point you can grab what they rejected while laying down the cash of the full marked price. Now this is where the difference between Gringo and Mexican cultures does not differ at all and at near the speed of light all moving bodies look the same and all elbows feel the same in your side.

Finding any "good used stuff" in Mexico is an art form most of us will never approach and if you must do it merely for the sake of entertainment then you need to find someone who works in the hobby and has attained a near doctorate in the skill, otherwise you are going to come home with a lot of wasted bus tickets, taxi rides and hotel room costs that you could have just funneled into buying what you want at Costo instead.