|
Written by Tim Ballering
|
|
Thursday, 12 July 2007 |
|
The for rent sign
Most owners feel you must have adequate signage on your rental home or building listing a contact phone number. However a few disagree.
The debate over the for rent sign reminds me of funny story. It was probably twenty years ago. Myself and a another large landlord ,who shall remain nameless least I embarrass him, opened a retail carpet store as a way of getting carpet at wholesale for our rental units. We were proudly showing off our new venture to his brother when the brother turned to us and said "Nice place. Where's the open sign?" I feel the same way about for rent signs. You really should have one.
Some owners do not have the same strong feelings on for rent signs. Perhaps they never had a carpet store without an open sign. 
The main reason some owners do not like signs is they find signs cause too many phone calls from “looky-loos”, people with no real interest in the specific type of unit you have for rent, because a typical sign offers far less details than the normal for rent ad. Other owners find that if the property doesn’t match the needs of the prospective tenant that the extra calls from the sign can be redirected to other available units. I guess this is a matter of how many units you have available. I for one like high call volume as we are large enough to always have units for rent.
One way to cut down on unwanted calls is to put a sign rider on top listing the number of bedrooms and other pertinent information. You can buy the riders at a local sign shop. One with custom vinyl lettering and one color on a aluminum 6x24 rider runs about $15 or so. Also you may wish to spend the extra couple of bucks to get aluminum instead of corrugated plastic. Just drill holes in the aluminum to match the mounting holes for your sign frame.
Another way to cut down on call volume is to put your web address on your signs. The landing page then gives the prospective tenants all the particulars about the unit and the phone number to call. Also use your web address in all of your print ads
For small quantities of signs, riders etc. we use:
www.realestatesupercenter.com
For larger quantities the best deal I have found for any
type of sign is VictoryStore.com . Service and prices are great when there isn't an election in the next
two months. Our rep is JoAnne
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
A few owners feel the people that callers from the signs screen poorly (especially on income) or are very often calling for information for someone else. Other owners feel they are finding people who are familiar and want to live in the neighborhood more with signs that other forms of advertising.
You also should consider that a sign on a vacant single-family home may make it a potential target for vandalism or break ins.
No one has commented on this article. |
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 12 July 2007 )
|
