Real Estate Sign Placement: What a Passing Car Can Read

Placement is the only line on a sign order that is free. The panel has a price, the rider has a price, lamination and delivery have prices. Where you stand the finished sign costs nothing at all, and it is the only decision on the list that can take the value of everything above it to zero.

That is not a figure of speech. A sign face is a flat thing, so what a passing car sees is the true width times the cosine of the angle the face has been turned off the line of the road. Turn a $85 panel ninety degrees, so that it squares up neatly with the house and reads beautifully from the front step, and the people it was printed for see the thickness of a sheet of coroplast.

What turning the sign costs, in inches and in dollars

The shape of that fall is the part worth knowing. Squaring the sign up with the house feels like a tidy thing to do and the first few degrees of it are nearly free, which is exactly why signs end up at forty five. The loss accelerates the whole way down, and the last step costs more than the first four put together.

A 24 x 36" face is 6 square feet of print. At 6 square feet for $85 it works out at about $14.17 a square foot, which is a real rate you can hold a placement decision against: every ten degrees off parallel on a standard panel throws away more print than most agents would accept as a discount.

Parallel is right for a reason, and the reason is not neatness

Every page on this subject says to face the sign parallel to the road. Almost none of them say why, and the why matters, because there is a competing idea that sounds better: cant the face toward oncoming traffic so drivers see it square while they are still approaching.

That idea is correct, and it is correct for exactly one direction of travel. A residential street has two.

Here is the same panel seen from 30 feet up the road, which is as far back as a 3 inch agent name is readable, with the sign 25 feet in from the near wheel track:

Canting 30 degrees beats parallel handsomely from one direction and is the worst option on the table from the other. Parallel is the only orientation on that list whose worst direction is also its best, and on a two way street the worst direction is half your audience. That is the argument, and it holds whatever setback you measure.

It also tells you when to break the rule. On a one way street, on a frontage where the road bends so that traffic only ever arrives from one leg, or on a sign aimed at cars leaving a single exit, there is no second direction to protect and the cant is worth having.

Letter height decides how far back the sign is read, and that decides everything else

The rule signmakers work to is about ten feet of comfortable reading distance for every inch of capital letter height. It is a rule of thumb rather than a law, but it is close enough to plan with, and it puts a hard ceiling on what a lawn sign can say.

At Ontario's default built up area limit of 50 km/h, a car covers about 46 feet a second. Reading happens on the approach and for a moment after, so the window is roughly twice the reading distance:

A 3 inch name on a lawn panel gets under two seconds. That is the budget, and it is why the panels that work carry a name, a brokerage and a number rather than three bullet points. What actually goes on the face, and in what order, is worked out in the lawn sign design guide.

It also explains why the cosine above is the number that matters on a lawn sign. At 30 feet the car is nearly abeam already, so the sign gets read in the part of the pass where parallel is strongest.

A large panel is a different problem for the same reason. A 8 inch letter on a 4x8 at $280 is readable from about 80 feet, so it is read on the approach rather than abeam, and from 80 feet a parallel face shows only 30 percent of itself while a 30 degree cant shows 74 percent. On a development or land sign facing a road with a dominant direction of travel, angling the board is the right call. What those panels cost and which size does the job is in the land and development signs guide.

Where on the lot, and the line you cannot see

Angle is half of placement. The other half is the property line, and it is invisible.

The strip from the curb back past the sidewalk is usually municipal road allowance rather than the seller's lawn, and it frequently runs a metre or two behind the walk as well, which is why a sign that looks like it is on the grass can still be on city land. That is the reason signs get pulled and the reason a bylaw officer is within their rights to pull them. Set the sign well inside the line. Which municipality allows what, and where the permit line actually sits, is in the Ontario sign regulations guide.

Then keep it clear of the driveway. A panel at the edge of the apron is in the sightline of a car backing out, which is both a hazard and the most common way a brand new sign gets flattened.

What blocks a sign that is otherwise placed perfectly

A sign can be parallel, inside the line and still unread, because placement competes with everything else in the first ten feet of the property.

• Parked cars. A panel set close to the curb on a street where people park is behind a vehicle for most of the week. Set it back far enough that a parked car passes in front of it rather than over it.
• The hedge, and what it will be in July. A sign placed in April against a bare cedar is inside the hedge by midsummer. Look at the plant, not the gap.
• The slope. On a lawn that falls away from the road the face tips back and a driver gets a foreshortened view of a sign that is geometrically parallel. Stand the frame plumb and judge it from the road, not from the lawn.
• Snowbanks. From January the plough builds a wall along the curb, and a sign placed low and forward in December is behind it. Winter placement goes further back and the face sits higher.
• The other signs. Two listings on one block, both with panels at the lot line, read as one noisy row. Half a lot's offset separates them.

Every one of those is free to fix and none of them are fixable after the fact from a photograph, which is the argument for walking to the far side of the road once and looking back. Thirty seconds, and it is the only quality check on a sign that costs nothing.

Corner lots, and when the second panel is worth it

A corner lot has two frontages and one sign. Parallel to the busier street is the default, and in most subdivisions that is obvious from the traffic rather than from the map.

The honest alternative is two panels, and the price of the second one is not the shelf price. Two on a single order take the quantity price of $75 each, so two panels is $150 against $85 for one, which puts the second sign at $65. The question is simply whether the quieter frontage carries enough traffic to earn that, and on a true corner with two collector streets it usually does.

Note that the break is a single order rather than a running account, so it is worth deciding before the first panel is printed rather than after. How many signs a working year actually needs is in the how many signs guide.

What this shop does

True Sign Group prints the sign and you place it. There is no install and remove service here, which is the reason there is a price on the screen instead of a form to fill in. How the frame goes in the ground, what a paid install costs over a working year, and what to do about frozen ground is in the install guide.

Price a panel in about thirty seconds in the new sign tool. Delivery is $15 flat on the order wherever the van runs and pickup in Oshawa is free, so the whole cost is on the service areas page with no quote needed. If you want to talk through a difficult frontage, a corner or a long setback before ordering, the number is (905) 259-4361.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where should a for sale sign be placed?

Inside the property line, with the face parallel to the road, set well clear of the driveway so nothing blocks a car backing out. The strip from the curb back past the sidewalk is usually municipal road allowance rather than the seller's lawn, which is why signs placed there get pulled.

Which way should a for sale sign face?

Parallel to the road. A 24 inch wide face turned square to the house shows a passing car nothing but the thickness of the panel. Parallel is also the only orientation that reads the same from both directions of traffic, which is what a residential street has.

How far from the sidewalk should a for sale sign go?

Behind the property line, and that line usually sits further back from the curb than it looks because the road allowance often runs a metre or two behind the sidewalk as well. How far is a municipal question rather than a provincial one, so it is set by the local sign bylaw.

Do you need two signs on a corner lot?

Not always. One panel parallel to the busier street does most of the work. A second panel on the other frontage is $65 rather than $85, because two on one order take the quantity price of $75 each, so the question is whether the quieter street carries enough traffic to be worth that.

How far away can a real estate sign be read?

About ten feet for every inch of capital letter height, which is the rule signmakers work to. A 3 inch agent name is therefore readable from roughly 30 feet, so at 50 km/h the sign is legible for under two seconds. That is the whole budget, and it is why a lawn panel carries a name and a number rather than a feature list.