For Jeremy Adams, a software engineer living in the San Francisco Bay Area, the score was a Pottery Barn sectional for $400 on NextDoor.
For Anne Hersh, it was a $800 sideboard buffet she bought on Facebook Marketplace for $30.
And for Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, it was a $13,000 Roche Bobois sofa set she got for free from a neighbor.
The furniture resale market is having a moment. With people fleeing cities for more space in the face of coronavirus lockdowns, unemployed millennials moving back home with their parents, and boredom-induced redecorating taking the country by storm, tons of people have been selling their furniture, often at rock-bottom rates. For prowlers like Chizhik-Goldschmidt, Adams, Hersh, and many, many others, their neighbor’s trash is their latest treasure.
“It is like Black Friday every single day, where I can just type a piece of furniture I’m looking for into Facebook Marketplace and buy it for, like, 80 percent off,” Adams gleefully said. He’s been redecorating his apartment with used furniture sold by other engineers leaving the Bay Area. “I will probably never buy another new piece of furniture again.”
Facebook Marketplace, the social media giant’s portal for buying and selling used goods, has seen a spike in furniture action over the last few months, the company told Vox. Furniture listings have increased nearly 100 percent since April.
Over at NextDoor, a local social networking service for neighborhoods, furniture sales were up 28 percent in August 2020, the company said, compared to the same time last year. Pieces from Ikea, Pottery Barn, and Ashley HomeStore are flooding the app.
On AptDeco, a furniture resale marketplace serving New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, listings of furniture have nearly
