What goes on a listing sign
Buyers slow down for three things: the status, the brokerage and a phone number. The templates put FOR SALE (or OPEN HOUSE, SOLD, UNDER CONTRACT) in the biggest type, Your Brokerage under it as the sample brokerage, and the office phone on a line of its own.
- Agent panels add the agent's name, the license type ("Licensed Real Estate Salesperson") and a phone labeled "Cell".
- Open house signs: the day and time in tiles, today inside a house, a new listing with its open house in a burst, a serif for an upscale home, and arrow pairs where the words ride in the arrow.
- Status signs keep to one message each: sold, under contract as a rubber stamp, price improved on a tag, coming soon.
- Builders and landlords: model home, now leasing, lots and land for sale, commercial space for lease.
- The Equal Housing Opportunity mark sits small in a corner of every design.
The rules a New York sign has to follow
Under 19 NYCRR 175.25, a sign soliciting the sale or lease of a property must identify the brokerage, and a sign naming an agent must state the license type correctly. "Agent", "Realtor" alone or "Broker" alone does not count. A phone number that is not the office's is labeled as cell, home or desk.
Towns add their own limits. In East Fishkill an exempt real estate sign may be at most four square feet a side, one per property, and comes down when the home sells: a 24" × 18" sign fits, a 24" × 36" does not. Check your own town.
Sizes, and selling it yourself
The 24" × 18" panel is the workhorse; open house arrows work well at 18" × 12". By-owner templates leave a write-on area for the price, and fair housing rules still apply: no "adults only".