This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).
A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish
We do things that other brokers in the Phoenix area don’t do. We’re not the busiest listing brokerage — not by miles — but we’re among the most aggressively innovative in our marketing practices.
Our yard signs have always been very big, to try to grab as much attention as we can get for our listed homes, but for the past two years we have been building custom signs for our listings.
Working with Signs By Tomorrow in Peoria, we have been able to build huge, custom, four-color signs for our listed homes — featuring giant photographs of the interior and exterior of the house and custom descriptive copy about the property.
Our signs stop traffic. I know because I will often sit in my car a block or two away and watch passing cars as they slow down and stop to take in the sign, look over the house and grab a flyer.
We have a home listed in Peoria right now, and we took things one step further for this property. We know that a significant number of people in the surrounding area speak Spanish as their first language, so both the flyer and the custom sign are printed with one side in English and one side in Spanish.
Working from the English version of the Flyer, Enrique Lopez of YourPrintSource.com prepared the Spanish translation. This copy was typeset for both the flyer and the sign. If you approach the home — 7813 West Beryl Avenue — from the East, you’ll see the sign and flyer in English. From the West, you’ll see the sign and flyer in Spanish.
Just because there’s no reason not to, the photos on each side of the sign are unique. Instead of four pictures, we were able to use eight.
We also added a Spanish version of the flyer to the MLS listing so that Spanish-speaking buyers can read about the features of the home.
Regardless of our endlessly-debated border policies, as a matter of pure demographics, Phoenix is becoming a bilingual city. Doing real estate promotional material in both English and Spanish just makes sense.
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Ana in San Antonio says:
WOW!!! What a great idea, love the sign by the way. I think I need to make some custom signs too.
July 27, 2008 — 10:23 am
Tom Hall says:
The question is – do you speak Spanish? 🙂
July 27, 2008 — 11:01 am
Greg Swann says:
> The question is – do you speak Spanish?
Un muy muy poquito — but it doesn’t matter, because we don’t do dual agency.
July 27, 2008 — 11:08 am
James Boyer says:
You are so lucky to be able to do such innovative things. Here in New Jersey they seem to want to have a law for everything, and then we have the Real Estate police, jealous Real Estate agents who make complaints about any slight infraction they perceive. Then on top of that every small town has its own rules about what size the of the Real Estate signs and in some towns requiring that the sign be within 15 feet of the front of the home.
Kind of crazy don’t you think.
Jim
I love what you are doing though and think that you should keep up the great work.
July 27, 2008 — 11:29 am
Late Night Austin Real Estate Blog says:
Thats a great idea. I have a realtor friend in El Paso I will have to ask him if they have thought of biligual signs.
As far as restrictions we have a problem in on of our outlying communities that doesnt let you have signs at all. You can only have flyer boxes. Its pretty annoying.
July 27, 2008 — 1:13 pm
Erion Shehaj says:
Greg
I know this will vary based on the sign company but what does it cost for a complete custom sign like the one above?
On a different note, I have read a post of yours from a while back where you indicated that Bloodhound Realty collects a retainer to ensure that the “custom” costs (sign, single property website, business cards advertising the site etc) are covered. Do you think such a solution would be possible without a retainer for an average agent?
July 27, 2008 — 8:39 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I know this will vary based on the sign company but what does it cost for a complete custom sign like the one above?
The sign on top of the post is one we use again and again. The other two signs, the 24×36″ color sign and the 24″x7.5″ rider were $126 and $40 each. There is no economy of scale in digital inkjet printing, so the fact the the front and back were different didn’t matter in cost. Likewise, there is no black-only printing, so the rider is relatively more expensive than you might think. (We don’t use a rich black, but you could.)
It’s possible you can find the printing even cheaper than that, and, of course, going smaller will cost less. Printing on choroplast costs a lot less, but the color quality sucks. My take: cheaping it out is anti-marketing, and anti-marketing is wrse than no marketing.
> you indicated that Bloodhound Realty collects a retainer to ensure that the “custom costs” (sign, single property website, business cards advertising the site etc) are covered.
We collect a retainer to make sure the seller has some skin in the game. Our costs prior to hitting the MLS are usually far in excess of the amount of the retainer. We want to make sure at the time we sign the contract that the seller will give us the time to recoup all of our costs by letting us get the house to Close of Escrow. The retainer is a way for us to gauge the seller’s seriousness and to make an early exit painful.
> Do you think such a solution would be possible without a retainer for an average agent?
They’re only tenuously related. The signs sell houses and they sell you as a lister. They’ll do those jobs even if you don’t take a retainer. We spend almost nothing on client acquisition, but we spend a ton marketing our houses. If we do everything right, we sell fast and at a high LP/SP ratio. It’s the whole package that makes the retainer argument work.
July 27, 2008 — 9:00 pm
Thomas Johnson says:
Muy bien hecho.
July 27, 2008 — 9:39 pm
Gabriel Prado, Keller Willaims Legacy One Realty says:
Yes it is a changing of the times. A discussion was brought up in my license renewal class that talked about bilingual signs. The instructor stated that we as agents are supposed to make a listing available to the most amount of people possible, which would include bilingual signs. Any thoughts?
July 27, 2008 — 10:06 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Muy bien hecho.
Contract Friday, while we were in Orlando. Counter yesterday, signed today. Under contract. As far as I know, the Spanish on the sign, flyer and MLS listing had nothing to do with this. 😉
July 28, 2008 — 12:25 pm
Douglas Newby, Dallas Modern Homes says:
What a fantastic idea!! Have you had much response from the listing yet?
July 28, 2008 — 7:10 pm
Cameron Novak says:
You’re kidding right? Isn’t Enlish the official language of the U.S.A.?
When are we going to have all of our street signs in multiple languages?
Our school books?
Our menus?
They going to start speaking spanish when you pull up to a fast food drive through?
If they’re tourists… fine. If they live here… shouldn’t they learn the language?
Cameron
Corona Real Estate Agent
http://activerain.com/cameronnovak
July 29, 2008 — 12:36 am
Joe H says:
Sorry Cameron, but IMHO that’s the mentality of a redneck. I may agree with you to a certain point, but at the end of the day it’s still nonsense thinking.
July 29, 2008 — 7:35 am
Joe Strummer says:
You’re kidding right? Isn’t Enlish the official language of the U.S.A.?
No, in fact, it is not the official language of the U.S. in any meaningful sense. Governments at various levels, including the Federal Government, produce forms in Spanish all of the time. And, in any sense, most large scale companies provide both English and Spanish services. If you don’t like it, don’t buy from those companies.
But a realtor dealing in $200k homes in Phoenix who does not use Spanish is an idiot.
July 30, 2008 — 5:05 pm
Matt Kern says:
Have to agree with Cameron. I am not a real estate person or a redneck, and I do have native spanish speaking people in my family.
English is not the official language, but it should be.
The quickest way to a divided, unstable country is to have half speak one language, and half speak another.
Other than that…
Nice sign.
Matt Kern
July 31, 2008 — 10:09 pm
Yard Signs says:
“the quickest way to a divided, unstable country is to have half speak one language, and half speak another.” REALLY??!! How about having tolerant, understanding people who realize that their way isn’t always the best way. If we can cater to everyone (and it seems like we’re doing a darn good job trying) what is the issue? I think this is extremely innovative and more people should follow suit. Good job.
August 6, 2008 — 8:53 am
Sue says:
I’m thinking about learning Spanish. I had 2 years in school and retained some. It would be good to know.
August 11, 2008 — 8:02 pm