Directionals Move Properties > NetSparsh - Viral Content you Love & Share

Home
>
Real Estate
>
Directionals Move Properties

Directionals Move Properties

One of the most effective and frequently overlooked methods of filling or selling a property is the use of directional arrow signs. I'm guilty of it myself, although usually I'm merely lazy instead of overlooking this great marketing technique. Being lazy usually costs me in terms of holding costs, especially if you happen to be in a buyer's market as I currently am. Even if you're in a hot market where everything is moving quickly, directionals will move your property that much quicker.

Yes, there are numerous other methods you can use such as: flyers in the neighborhood and large stores and shopping malls, ads in the large and small papers, listings on the internet, listing with a real estate agent, calling real estate agents to inform them, mailouts to apartment complexes, yard signs with flyer boxes, open houses, calling loan officers, emailing your buyer list, etc., etc. (I have one friend use advertises her properties on the cable preview channel and she says it works great. Unfortunately, that option isn't available in my area.)

Why Do Directionals Work So Well?

Directional arrow signs work well for a number of reasons. First, they are targeted to the neighborhood where the property is located so the folks who will actually see them are the buyers or tenants who are already driving the neighborhood looking for properties. The second group of people who will see the signs are the residents who already live there. Many times the nearby residents will have family or friends who want to move into the neighborhood.

Flyers delivered to the neighborhood will also accomplish the notification aspect that there's an available property, but what flyers don't do is lead the prospect or prospect's friend straight to the front door.

Why Not Just Use Typical Bandit Signs?

For those that don't know, bandit signs are the road-side signs that many people utilize to advertise their business, favorite politician, and/or properties for sale or lease. The signs come in many colors and sizes, some professionally done and some hand-written. The nickname bandit signs stems from the fact that many municipalities have sign ordinances that prohibit their use or restrict use in the public domain or right of way.

The primary weakness of typical bandit signs for marketing a property for sale or lease is that the sign provides a little information (often impossible to read while driving by) and a phone number. If I'm out looking for properties today, I don't want to leave a message or turn around to go see what the sign said. I want to drive by NOW, not tomorrow, not later today, right now.

How is a Directional Arrow Sign Different?

Who said anything about one directional sign? I'm talking an entire series of signs that leads the prospect from the main thoroughfare all the way through the neighborhood to the driveway of your property. There's no thinking, major squinting, turning around, or phone calls involved here. "Oh, honey, turn there quick." Then it's "look, there's another sign, turn there." etc., all the way to the property. Then, of course, there's more information including contact numbers available at the property.

Okay, So How Do I Implement This Technique?

Here's the way I do it and you should tweak it and improve to suit you. When a property becomes available, I study the neighborhood and determine the "best" ways to lead prospects to my property. By "best", I take into consideration ease of navigation, neighborhood amenities like parks and schools, and surrounding properties. If there's a back way into the subdivision or location, I map out both paths.

My target locations are every single corner that my prospects will need to turn in order to get to the property. If there's a really long stretch without a turn, then I might need a directional arrow in the middle of that stretch to keep them coming. My experience has been that I will have to replace signs within the neighborhood only a few times, but I have to monitor the signs on the major roads and replace them fairly frequently. However, these signs tend to stay put much longer than a traditional bandit sign.

Then I simply go door-knocking and ask people if I can place a small directional sign in their yard. I intentionally do this during the day to miss folks because I'd rather not get involved in lengthy discussions about the property and I've got many doors to get to. Once I'm sure no one's home, I leave a letter in the screen door or someplace where it will be easily seen. I drop this letter at all four houses on each corner on the route.

What Does the Letter Say?

I've found it's important to NOT come across as a real estate investor or a company. I use an informal style and simply ask for help in finding someone to buy or lease my property. Points that I include in the letter are:

It's just a small directional arrow sign
I'll put it right by the corner and not really in their yard
I'll make sure I don't damage any sprinkler systems
They get a $20 gift certificate once the process is done
They get to choose the store, restaurant, etc.
Please call me to replace the sign if it gets removed
The first person who calls me wins
This technique has never failed. Frequently, I'll have two or more people from each corner call me, but I've always had at least one person call to agree to the arrangement. Some of them have even taken serious offense to do-gooder neighbors who remove the signs as the property owner is concerned they might not get their gift certificate. I'll describe the signs in more detail below, but I started adding "Placed With Permission of Owner" on the top of the signs and this reduced my losses.

The end result of this effort is that perhaps I pay out $160 to $200 in referral fees, but I have to run my $50 to $150 worth of weekly newspaper ads many, many fewer weeks. It definitely pays off from a monetary standpoint. The other benefit is that I now have a list of folks near each property (whom I've never even met) who think I'm great. Every single person will call me back after receiving their gift to thank me and the large majority volunteer that I'm more than welcome to do this anytime I need.

What Do the Signs Look Like?

The signs I use are basically the standard bandit signs cut in half. A normal size bandit sign is 18" x 24" and I use 9" x 12" signs for my directional arrows. I have a red directional arrow that takes up about 5 inches of the sign, leaving the bottom 4 inches blank. Within the red arrow I ask the sign company to put my message which could be "Owner Finance" or "Lease Purchase" or whatever you prefer. The message is easy to read.

In the blank space I use a large marker to write the property address. It's important to leave enough blank space below the arrow to write the address in large numbers and letters. Also, as I mentioned above, I include the "owner permission" tag line on top of the arrow. I buy 36" wooden stakes from Home Depot and attach an arrow sign to each side of the stake so the information can be seen coming and going.

If you don't have a source for these signs, please contact BanditSigns.com to get some. They're inexpensive and well worth the cost.

I hope you'll add this tool to your marketing techniques and discover the same success I've had in using it. You may find that you abandon many other advertising tools you've been using in the past.

Sincerely,

Tim Randle
http://TexasRealEstateClub.com

About The Author

Tim Randle is a full-time real estate investor in the Austin, Texas area. For more information, please visit his web site at http://TexasRealEstateClub.com

[email protected]

In The News:

This RSS feed URL is deprecated, please update. New URLs can be found in the footers at https://news.google.com/news

New York Times
Keeping Bohemian as Real Estate Prices Soar: The Canada Letter
New York Times
This week a fourth Canadian joined The Times's contingent in Canada. Lindsey Wiebe, who grew up on a farm in Western Manitoba, is our audience growth editor. That means she'll be working with Dan Bilefsky, Catherine Porter and me to help connect more ...

Entrepreneur
How the New Tax Law Affects Your Real Estate Business
Entrepreneur
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) brings big tax changes to the real estate sector, the likes of which haven't been seen since the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Fortunately, the impact on real estate businesses should be mostly positive. That said, there are ...

and more »

Forbes
The Most Creative Ways To Find Real Estate Deals For Growing Investors
Forbes
When I started investing in real estate 15 years ago, I was your average broke college kid. I didn't have a ton of money to put into marketing efforts to attract sellers so I could find properties, so it was important to get creative. Learning to ...

Sacramento Bee
Ex-real estate titan Lyon heads back behind bars for secret sex tapes
Sacramento Bee
Lyon, 62, the local real estate titan who once lent his name and cash to good works across the region, was sentenced to six years and four months in state prison in Sacramento Superior Court on charges of electronic eavesdropping and videotaping ...

What makes veterans a great fit for real estate?
Inman.com
Real estate is a great career choice for returning servicemembers like myself. There are so many traits, characteristics and skills that former military servicemembers have that translate well in real estate. In fact, I use a lot of things the Army ...

Arizona agent uses real estate marketing skills for activism
Inman.com
Bill Rosene, a Buckeye, Arizona-based agent, recently jumped into real estate with the hope of providing more for his family than he could as a math teacher. But he remained deeply concerned about the challenge of getting by on a public school teacher ...

and more »

GeekWire
Amazon drives another real estate record in Seattle
GeekWire
The sale of Westlake 202, deep in the heart of Amazon's South Lake Union campus in Seattle, fetched the owner, German firm GLL Real Estate Partners GmbH, $129.5 million, or a record $996 per square foot. The buyer willing to pay the record price was ...

Black Enterprise
26 Year-Old Nigerian-American Real Estate Entrepreneur Has Closed Over $3 Million In Real Estate Deals
Black Enterprise
Victor Bomi had been working with one of the largest insurance companies in the country as a financial adviser for only six months when he resigned to focus on his real estate business. At just 26, his company, ATLCO Real Estate Inc. has now closed ...

theberkshireedge.com
Welcome to Real Estate Friday!
theberkshireedge.com
What's on the Market – We are diving into this long weekend of remembrance with Pool Properties offered by Mary Jo Piretti of Piretti Real Estate, Christine Martin of The Kinderhook Group Real Estate Stockbridge, Stone House Properties, and Brandon ...

SFGate
Sound Off: Advice for anyone considering a career in real estate?
SFGate
A: My real estate career started 20 years ago after a house cleaning client, who was a Realtor, told me that anyone who loves the service industry would do well in real estate. Well, I did housecleaning, waitressing, and bartending and loved it. Real ...
Real estate briefs, May 26, 2018Middletown Press

all 4 news articles »

Google News

Directionals Move Properties

Real Estate Real Estate