Real estate board dos & don’ts

Larissa Gardner
4 min read

Real estate boards not only serve the practical purpose of letting everyone know a particular property is for lease or for sale and generating interest, they also act as a billboard for your brand and business.

If people in a certain neighbourhood see your face and beautifully presented property boards dotted around streets all over town, who do you think they’re going to call when they need an appraisal?

 Image: Liquid Communications
Image: Liquid Communications

Think of your yard signs as a branding awareness tool connecting you to people that aren’t actively looking to buy or sell right now and wouldn’t be exposed to your listings or branding otherwise.

To get the all-important appearance of your real estate boards right, here are our dos and don’ts to design stellar real estate signage.

DO go pro

To have your property boards working their hardest for you, you need to put your best foot forward by hiring professionals to get the best look possible. Take full advantage of the professional listing photos you had taken by including a select two or three on the board that show off the finest features of the residence.

If you haven’t already, for the best results engage a professional sign writer to help you with the design, size, fonts, formatting and production of the property boards themselves.  

DO up the ante

Wow passers-by, and impress your vendors and potential vendors by investing in the latest and greatest real estate sign technology. HD digital signboards are great to use for listings in high foot traffic areas where passers-by often stop to take in the entire listing video as they’re keen topeek inside without the time commitment of attending an inspection.

Unlike a static sign, you can make changes to your digital sign remotely, which would be very handy to change inspection or auction times for instance. Take your sign to the next techy eye-catching level by including drone bird’s-eye view footage of the residence and suburb. Who doesn’t love trying to spot their own house from above?

Other interactive content to put on your digital board could include:

  • Floorplans

  • Image slideshow gallery

  • Listing tour video clips

  • gifs

  • Infographics

  • A countdown to auction day

 Image: Campaigntrack
Image: Campaigntrack

DO include contact details

For your property board to work most effectively, you must have a call to action where interested parties can easily get in touch with you for more information. Passers-by often take photos of real estate boards of properties they’re interested in so make sure your name, company logo, phone number, website and email address are in prominent position so they can get in touch at a later time.

It’s also a nice touch to include your headshot so potential clients can put a face to a name for the star real estate agent in their area.

DON’T say too much

Remember essential for any decent property board is an eye-catching headline and a clear succinct message. Craft a simple headline that sums up your listing in a sentence that will appeal to your target buyer or renter. For example ‘Only a 5 minute walk to South Yarra station’ or ‘Brand new family home in Glen Waverley Secondary College catchment’.

Keep the property description short and sweet including the most useful and impressive info about the home to entice people to come to your opens. Dot points work well for property boards so people can have a quick skim read of what’s on offer. Also avoid industry jargon and buzzwords where possible.

DON’T forget to proofread!

Before sending off the final version of your copy to the sign writers carefully run your eyes over the text a few times to check for any spelling or grammatical errors, if only to avoid the embarrassing viral fate of Anna Wang and Lucy Ren (pictured below).

 Image: The Daily Mail
Image: The Daily Mail

For improved proofreading print off the draft copy, set it aside for 15 minutes or so to get some distance from the text, then read it aloud and slowly to yourself to ensure each sentence makes sense. If in the past you’ve made spelling errors try reading it backwards checking each word one at a time.

It’s always smart to have a second set of eyes proofread your sign as they may pick up on something you might have missed, so check with a colleague or friend to avoid a costly mistake. You could even hire a copy writer or proof reader that specialises in real estate prose to ensure your listing descriptions are always spot on and professional.

While we do acknowledge that a lot more hard work goes into leasing or selling a property than just the property sign out front, but when it comes down to representing the marketing efforts for your business it can’t hurt to have the most professional and eye-catching board on the block.

For more tips on real estate boards take a look at our guide to good open house signage.

Larissa Gardner
Larissa Gardner is the Marketing Manager at arguably Australia’s best looking real estate website homely.com.au. With a superb devotion to product innovation, user-centred design and innovative marketing platforms for real estate agents, homely.com.au helps millions of Australians find their next home.

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