Real Estate Signs (Signs)

A listing sign sits parallel to the street, which means cars approach it from both directions and half of them see the back. A single sided sign is invisible to half the traffic on the road it is meant to work on.

That is the one decision on this page that changes whether the sign does its job. Directional arrows pointing traffic toward an open house can be single sided, because people only see them from one approach. The sign in the front yard should not be.

Portrait or landscape is a genuine choice, not a formality. Landscape suits a name and a phone number read left to right from a car. Portrait suits a stacked message and takes up less lawn width.

Your name and your phone number, large. Not the brokerage logo, which is the thing most agents make biggest. A buyer driving past is trying to reach a person, and the number is what they are looking for.

Nothing that will change. Price, status and open house times belong on riders, not on the main panel — otherwise a price reduction means reprinting the sign instead of swapping a strip.

Three lines at most. The sign is read in about two seconds from a moving car. Everything past the third line is for the person who has already stopped, and they will use their phone.

High contrast. Dark type on light, or light on dark. Mid-tone on mid-tone looks sophisticated on a screen and vanishes at forty feet in bright sun.

Worth checking before you print. Most North Dallas cities have their own rules on signs in rights-of-way, on medians and at intersections, and enforcement varies. HOAs frequently have their own sign standards that are stricter than the city's, and some communities restrict directional signs to specific hours.

We cannot advise on any of that, and it changes by jurisdiction. Check with the city and the HOA before a large order — the cost of asking is a phone call and the cost of not asking is a confiscated set.