Some Las Vegas master-planned communities hold yard sales

There's no buried treasure in the Las Vegas desert, but finding something useful and potentially valuable among someone's trash is a tried-and-true method of local garage-sale hunters. And to find a community garage sale inside a Las Vegas master-planned community is like finding the gold coins hidden in Genoa.

But while the master-planned community sales are big, they definitely aren't the largest found in the nation. The Detroit Metro Times says that title is reserved for a select few: a 241-mile trek in Ohio, a 400-mile sale in Kentucky, and "the Highway 127 Yard Sale, stretching from Michigan to Georgia, is the Big Kahuna of community garage sales: well-publicized, widely participated in, and snaking through some historic country, with everything from ephemera to cars and boats."

The Las Vegas yard sales are less about size and more about convenience. In central locations, with multiple sellers, community sales offer a lot of variety, value and vendors.

And to a seller, community sales offer a hassle-free experience. No worries about letting people in the gates, contacting back and forth on online forums or trying to warn neighbors about traffic flow.

And traffic there will be. Community sales are well advertised by the association through newspaper ads, banners, websites, flyers, bulletin boards and general word of mouth.

"Whenever possible, try to consolidate garages sales throughout your neighborhood," advises garagesalehunter.com. "Try to organize a street wide garage sale if possible. This way, your advertising costs and efforts will be minimized."

The convenience of living in a master planned community brings pre-arranged sale dates, sign-up sheets and free advertising.

Providence provides maps at Knickerbocker Park of the neighborhoods that clearly mark garage-sale participating houses to help guide traffic through the neighborhood during their sales. This provides not only free advertising, but great, free customer service.

A tip from the pros: price your items slightly above what you're hoping to net. Garage-sale hunters are notorious hagglers, and this gives a little wiggle room in negotiations.

Living in a master-planned community makes yard-selling simple. Sign up, set up a table, stick prices on your wares and be searching for your own buried treasure by noon.