Every spring, our neighborhood seems to blossom with For Sale by Owner signs. Most of these FSBO signs are on the low budget side and are made of either poster board, metal cookie sheets, or stolen real estate signs that have been sprayed white and stenciled in red.
These low budget For Sale by Owner signs send a pretty strong message that the owner is either cheap or really isn’t interested in selling his home. In short, the kind of owner that probably is asking too much for his home and refuses to wheel and deal. Is that the kind of message you want to send to a prospective buyer? If not, learn how easy it is to make a professional looking For Sale by Owner sign for your home.
Visit an office supply store
Most office supply stores sell House for Sale signs in a wide range of prices. Stay away from the paper signs and buy the ones made of a durable, corrugated plastic product called Coroplast. Coroplast is sturdy and weather proof, and really is one of the best inexpensive sign products on the market.
An office supply store will carry pre-printed Coroplast House For Sale signs for around $20 which have some empty space for including a home phone number. If you have fabulous printing, hand write your phone number with a thick felt marker and make the characters large and thick enough to be seen from the street. If your writing is not so hot, consider buying stick on numbers instead. A sheet of stick on numbers can range between $5 to $10.
A rule of thumb to remember is that to be legible from 30 feet away, the lettering must be at least one inch in height. A yard sale perched in the middle of the lawn will probably need to have characters at least two inches in height to be visible from the street.
The downside of one of these pre-fab signs is that they are not very large and can be easily missed by motorists cruising down the street.
Design a professional looking sign
If you have some design skill and don’t mind forking out a little more money for a professional looking sign, a better alternative is to custom design a sign that can be silk screened on either a colorful Coroplast or metal yard sign.
Signs can be designed using FreeHand and saved as an eps. file to disc. A local advertising or sign company can then transfer your design to one of these surfaces. Coroplast signs average around $35. A metal yard sign, such as the type real estate agents use will run about $100.
There are a few on-line companies that sell Coroplast signs that can be custom designed on line using their site tools. This is an excellent solution for property owners who don’t have a design software. These on-line companies charge in the neighborhood of $35-$40 for a 24″ square sign.
Include a plastic flyer holder
As a rule, it’s probably not a good idea to post the price of your house on a sign. A better alternative is to attach something called a “flyer holder” to the side of your sign which contains the sales price and a spec sheet with your home’s features.
Sturdy flyer holders typically cost $80 however, a light weight self-adhesive folder will also do the trick. These holders are $15 and can be found in most advertising stores.
The key to having a sharp looking sign is that it has to be clean, crisp, readable from a distance and look like you mean business. You may only have one chance to catch the interest of a prospective buyer driving down the street, and a sign that looks like you are serious about selling will have them slowing down for that closer look.
