Real estate signs are still an offline marketing tool for many real estate professionals to draw attention to a particular property for sale.
And using them as a marketing or advertising method is not as easy to track performance-wise as online advertising.
But the same goals still apply to real estate signs.
You probably want to generate real estate leads with them without experimenting a lot, and A/B testing is quite challenging.
Nevertheless, you probably still want the best chances to convert drive-bys into leads from the get-go.
Therefore, one question often arises:
What are the best colors for real estate signs?
You want to use purple/brown and/or black for high-end properties.
You might want to use orange and/or red if you sell houses at lower prices.
Should you be in the healthy homes niche, go for green colors. And for open houses, use red, orange, and/or yellow colors.
Do you want to know the science behind these color choices? Just read the rest of this article.
I will discuss different sign forms and the science of color psychology and give you some bonus tips to think out of the box regarding signs.
These Are the 5 Different Types of Real Estate Signs
Not much explanation is needed regarding what a real estate sign is.
But to make sure we talk about the same thing here, I will explain.
A real estate sign is usually a physical rectangular surface made of a durable material, where text that announces a particular property for sale or rent is announced.
This sign is typically placed outside a house on the property so enough people passing by can see it.
Are there different types of real estate signs?
Yes, there are five different types, which I will discuss below.
1) The Inverted L-Shape Sign
The inverted L-shape sign is the most commonly used. It is usually the first thing you associate with a real estate sign, often used by larger brokerage firms.
In the past, it was a wood post painted white, and these days, it is made of a durable aluminum stake covered in black or white powder.
It is usually 66’’ tall, weighs between 5 and 15 pounds, and can carry an aluminum sign with dimensions of 24 to 30 inches wide.
2) The H-Frame Sign
The h-frame sign is most suitable for lightweight corrugated plastic signs. The holder is usually made of metal.
These signs are often the least expensive option for ground-mounted real estate signs.
3) The Frame Sign
Imagine two playing cards you try to put together, so they can stand together on a table and look like an “A” from the side perspective.
Imagine this “construction” in a bigger version, and you have a frame sign.
They usually weigh less than a pound; the metal frames are steel and iron.
Often, you can choose between angle frames and rounded frames.
4) The Vinyl Decal Sign
The most economical option is the vinyl decal sign.
It is often used in storefront windows to advertise different product offers and the availability of commercial real estate.
They are often the best option when either ground-mounted signs can’t be afforded or accommodated because of foot traffic.
5) The Feather Flag Sign
The feather flag sign is quite frequently used when it comes to advertising new constructions or apartments.
They are polyester flags stretched over a curved pole, can weigh around 5 lbs, and messages are placed vertically.
They also have a swivel base, so the flag can move when the wind blows.
Now that we have the basics let’s get into colors, which, together with the suitable ad copy, are more important than the shape or form of the signs.
Although there is an exemption when you use specific shapes quite creatively.
I will discuss the latter in the last bonus section of this article.
Color Psychology and What It Means for Your Advertising Methods
There are several statistics and scientific studies about colors and how they influence consumer and buyer behavior that I will discuss in this section.
We can then derive the colors best for real estate signs from the statistics and scientific facts I found.
Statistics and Scientific Facts About Color
There is a field called color psychology, which studies different colors and how they influence human behavior.
They can influence perceptions and cause different kinds of emotions in people.
This influence can differ depending on gender, age, and culture.
In marketing and branding, colors influence consumers’ perceptions and emotions about products and services.
For instance, some studies show that red can attract spontaneous buyer types (source).
General Marketing Statistics About Color
- For 35% of women, blue is preferred compared to 57% of men.
- It influences 85% of shoppers’ purchase decisions.
- Colors influence people’s behavior, mood, and stress levels.
- This coincides somewhat with my article on video for real estate. When potential buyers consider a purchase, they focus on visual appearance in 93% of cases (source).
And what are the different effects and associations of the colors?
- Red: Passion, aggression, and a sense of urgency. This color can also increase the heart rate and blood pressure and stimulate appetite (see McDonald’s logo).
- Blue: Reliability, tranquility, peace, security. It also relates to water and the sky. Some airports use this color, like, for example, the international airport in Houston.
- Yellow: This stands out the most and can cause positive emotions, such as creativity, optimism, and happiness. It can also attract impulsive buyers.
- Green: Health, power, tranquility, harmony, and stability. It’s the color of nature and is often used in eco-friendly products.
- Purple: Uniqueness, royalty, respect, luxury, wisdom. It can also provoke creativity.
- Orange: Since it combines yellow and red, it can also attract impulsive buyers looking for more affordable products. Therefore, it’s also often used on landing pages for call-to-action buttons.
- Brown: Since it’s the color of the earth, it can signal durability, quality, comfort, elegance, security, and reliability. Companies offering products made of leather or wood especially like to use this color.
- White: Safety, simplicity, professionalism, intelligence, and cleanliness
- Grey: Wisdom, stability, intelligence, experience, and dignity.
- Black: While a bit risky to use due to its association with evil, darkness, and death, it can also cause a feeling of power, elegance, tradition, and sophistication. It’s often used for high-end products.
- Blue, black, and gray are often used to target men.
- Pink, red, and purple are often used to target women.
- Orange, red, black, and royal blue can better attract impulsive buyer types.
- Teal and navy blue attract shoppers on a budget.
- Pink rose and sky blue attract traditional buyers (source).
The Best Colors to Use on Real Estate Signs
As you might already suspect from the above statistics and facts, there is no one general color for real estate signs you want to use.
It again depends on what property you want to sell and which kind of target buyers.
So, it depends on the real estate niche you are working in (see also my article on different real estate niches here).
If you sell high-end properties for the luxury real estate market, you might want to use purple, brown, and/or black colors.
They are all somewhat associated emotions that you might want to communicate subconsciously with the high-end properties you want to sell, such as luxury, elegance, comfort, and sophistication.
The colors you use for your real estate signs should differ when your specialty is in houses of lower price ranges.
Here, your first choice should be orange and/or red, attracting the more impulsive buyers that prefer rather affordable properties.
The color red can also influence them to take action faster.
Suppose you are in the real estate niche of healthy homes or sustainable buildings. In that case, you might instead use green, which signals health, harmony, and tranquility.
In turn, it can get tricky when you plan to do an open house (an in-depth article about doing open houses, you can find it here in my blog).
Since one of the goals of an open house is to attract enough visitors, you want to influence people in a way that they take action and attend your event.
Red, orange, and/or yellow would be good color choices since they can influence the action-taking part.
But if you do an open house for a high-end property, orange might cause a small conflict.
Orange attracts more potential buyers looking for affordable products.
But the best choice for high-end properties would be the colors purple, brown, and/or black.
So you might need to create a smart and creative combination for your sign.
For instance, brown/black and yellow are not the primary color used for your sign, but as a call to action, such as “Open House Today.”
Bonus Tip – Get Creative. It’s About Attention
The success of the whole game of using real estate signs mainly depends on how well you can draw and create attention from potential buyers.
And attention is the first element of the most well-known copywriting formula AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action).
I have already discussed this formula in several articles, such as this one and this one.
So the right color is crucial in drawing attention and persuading the right target buyers. However, the shape or form of the sign can also be used to fuel this attention element.
The types of signs I mentioned at the beginning of this article are not exactly the best attention generators.
They are the common signs that are most often used and perceived as noise; thus, they don’t stand out very much.
To use the form of the signs to generate attention, you will need to get creative and think outside the box.
An article from close.com mentions several unconventional sign types that will draw more attention than the popularly used ones.
In one example, a sign has the form of a magnifying glass with the sales copy in the middle of the circle.
Another sign has built-in lights, highlighting the design and the ad copy. This will stand out during the night.
The next one takes the idea of a sign a step further and uses a small mobile home as a sign that you can enter.
And the last example I wanted to mention is not playing with the form of the sign but with the type of typo used for the ad copy.
This type of sign uses typos intentionally and a handwritten font style, as is often done in the wholesale real estate niche (e.g., “we buy houses”) with bandit signs.
And if you still need to figure out viable marketing channels for your lead generation, here you can learn how to increase your overall success rate with a new tool I created.
Real Estate Expert Q&A
Scott Russell from Freestone Properties
I asked our real expert Scott Russell from Freestone Properties, about his experience with real estate signs. Below you will find his answers.
Question:
What has been your experience with real estate signs so far?
Answer:
“They do result in phone calls about our listings when the listing is in a busy area or a popular street. And we are sure to add “Sale Pending” riders to show the neighbors when a listing sold quickly.“
Question:
Could you measure their performance? If yes, could you find a particular sign type and color that worked best for you in the past?
Answer:
“Not sure we could “measure” their performance, and we haven’t experimented with other colors.”
Question:
If you couldn’t measure their performance, why was it difficult?
Answer:
“We just haven’t tried. We would use signs even if they weren’t effective as a lead generation tool, because they help identify the correct house for showings.”
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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