Here are a couple of demos of custom signs for listings. These aren’t built to size (24×36″), they’re just scale models (~27%) so that I can see how things work together. Our normal riser will sit atop these, with a rider with the price hanging below. The whole Bloodhound sign idea is to stop traffic, and I think these could be very effective.
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Andrew says:
These signs are definitely something different. I can’t say that I have seen anything like them before. I just was thinking of something else you could do. What if your sign was a just a cutout of the dog and the dog was holding a sign with information about the house in his mouth?
Maybe its not a great idea, but I was just thinking of a way to really set it apart from the standard signs out there.
August 3, 2006 — 1:57 pm
Cheryl, Broker in L A, CA says:
Those are pretty cool! Is it a local company that’s making them for you? Or could someone in, say, Los Angeles, call, fax, or email them and place an order? I can see all kinds of variations on the idea….
August 3, 2006 — 2:11 pm
Greg Swann says:
I’ve know for years that we would do this, I’ve just been wating for the technology to catch up. What I’d really like is touch-screen flat-panel monitors running unattended through a five minute infomercial for the house, interruptible by the directios of potential buyers.
Cheryl: Name the variations on the idea and I’ll tell you how you can do this for yourself…
August 3, 2006 — 2:55 pm
foobeca says:
I wouldn’t think that touch-screen flat panels would be a good idea. What’s to stop some punk with a rock from destroying it? The technology is there, but most RE agents seem to enjoy posting postage stamp-sized pictures that seem to be taken with camera phones.
August 3, 2006 — 3:58 pm
amazed says:
the problem is it is going to be difficult to keep having to change the price???? the prices are going down daily right? maybe use a dry erase board! that way when the prices change hourly you can be prepared!!
August 3, 2006 — 4:25 pm
CJ, Broker in L A, CA says:
Greg – OK, well, let’s stick with something basic – a large exterior photo of the house for sale, a couple smaller interior photos, the description of the property, our logo, website. No dog. (I could use a photo of my own dog, I suppose, or one of my cats, but never mind .) No price, since as pointed out by a different comment, that might change.
I like your technique of using a sign rider for the price…
August 3, 2006 — 6:22 pm
Greg Swann says:
The vendor we found:
Signs by Tomorrow
602-564-7525
You can find this in LA, though, I’m sure. What you’re looking for is a CMYK (at least) ink-jet sign printer that will do the sizes you need in one sheet. Signs by Tomorrow can do 72″ wide by the length of a roll of paper; you could “wrap” a house. The vendor should understand real estate signs and should have aluminum or vinyl stock to laminate to. You need a protective scuff coating — even then they’ll get beat up — and UV protection for that brutal SoCal sun.
The real challenge is producing the artwork — and in a timely fashion. For once you’ll need all the mega-pixels your camera can cough up, and you’ll still have to resample the big images to avoid pixelization. This will slow down your computer amazingly, so go for all the horsepower you can get. Printing vendors of all sorts choke on fonts, bad dimensions, mixed color models, etc., so learn to do what they want their way. Mistakes will be very costly.
All that is why I know this will be a huge competitive advantage: My competitors will not do this. Many are too lazy, more are too cheap and almost all of them lack the skill-set necessary to pull it off. If they farm the work out, the turnaround time will be too long and the cost will be outrageous.
Here’s a twist, something I’ll hold back until I see something ambitious from someone else: Two different signs on each face of the stock, one image going to work, one image coming home.
When you do your first custom sign, shoot me a reduced version and I’ll post it with a link back to you.
August 3, 2006 — 7:07 pm