Welcome to the site.
I think the first thing you're going to need is an imagination.... a really vivid one.

To the more experienced haunters, there is no such thing as junk, scrap, garbage, or debris. As my son said as we cut the feet off a mannequin to make our werewolf..."remember to keep those feet! Never throw out a body part!"

Where "normal" people see scrap fence posts that have been dug out and replaced, haunters see mounts for scarecrows. Where normal people see stacks of old pallets, haunters see free lumber for walls, stands, cages, guillotines, pirate ships, you name it. Where normal people see old wire spools in the dumpster, haunters see gears for a giant saw machine or body sections for a huge snake. Haunters tend to look at everything not as it is, but what it could be with a little imagination, lots of Great Stuff foam, and some elbow grease.
The second thing to keep in mind is that most props are shapes and not machines. Most of them only have to have the right shape, and don't have to work mechanically. For example, take a tall round wastebasket, cut three panels about 4" wide at the bottom, 3" wide at the top, and 18" tall. What do you have? You can have three pieces of vinyl wastebasket, or turn them around, connect them on the long edges, and you a have a perfect base with concave sides for a Lombardi Super Bowl trophy prop. Find an old reptile cage that someone is junking and turn it into a cage for an escaped monster. Find an old woman's shoe mannequin, put some sculpy clay around it, shape it a bit and you have a monster's foot. Take an old football helmet and a bunch of old towels, place them in the shape of a body, wrap them in an old sheet, and you've got a dead body. You'll find lots of folks on here who take lots of things you would never think would work as a prop, and when they're used in the right way... they look amazing.
I'm like a twisted version of the Grinch. I realized Halloween doesn't come from the store, and the best haunts I see are all fabricated from junk that others would just as soon throw away but someone had the heart, imagination, and drive to turn it into something awesome, and for me heart, imagination, and drive trump money any day when it comes to great haunts. You can plan out what you want to do, but keep your eyes open all the time for stuff that's getting tossed and ask yourself "what would that be good for as part of a haunt?" I guarantee you your lawn will fill up much faster than you can imagine.
