Dan's Papers - June 13, 2008

It ain't easy being a real estate agent. You have to negotiate huge deals with nervous participants, deal with very picky customers and fiercely compete for listings. After all that effort, all you can really do is hope that a customer will buy a home from you. In addition to the hurdles that come with representing a seller's home, there is the issue of dealing with local restrictions that interfere with business. Namely: real estate signs.

Real estate signs that advertise a home is for sale are enormously popular for two simple reasons. First, the advertising is practically free, so there is little financial burden on the agent who posts a sign. Second, a buyer who sees the sign is calling after having already looked at the outside of the home, and is directly contacting the listing agent.

Throughout the Hamptons, different areas have different requirements for signs. Put up the wrong sized sign in the wrong place, and you could have a code enforcement officer from the Town of East Hampton or the Town of Southampton knocking it down, visiting your open house and serving you up a fine. Sign restrictions range from size to location, to whether or not you are even allowed to have one at all. Nonetheless, real estate agents find ways to make their customers and clients happy, even in the face of some pretty unusual restrictions.

In East Hampton and Southampton Towns, one law says you cannot put up a sign on town-owned property. Now, why would this be a problem? After all, a sign generally goes up right on the seller's private property, making it unnecessary to dig one in on town-owned property. The reason has to do with advertising an open house through the use of a sign. When an agent has an open house, it is important that he or she put up a sign that directs a driver to the house, at a street corner for example. But if that "Open House" sign with an arrow pointing down a road is sitting on town-owned property, odds are it is illegal and a code enforcement officer might take it down and confiscate it, as well as write up a fine for the posting. (By the way, this is also true for "Yard Sale" signs and party signs.) Putting balloons on signs is also against the law - the same is true when advertising a birthday party, although those signs often go unnoticed for a few hours by sympathetic officials.

Sometimes homeowners don't want to put up a sign for personal reasons - they may not want neighbors to know that the house is for sale, or they may still be living in the house and don't like the "feel" of the sign when they come home. (A tactful agent will work in the best interest of sellers, advising them that putting up a sign will help them sell their home.)

Private developments have their own rules on real estate signs. For example, Clearwater Beach and Barnes Beach in East Hampton carry covenant restrictions which, although private, make it illegal to post signs of any type - including real estate signs. What's an agent to do? Advertise the listing through a newspaper or the Internet, of course.

In Southampton Village, there are laws restricting the size of a real estate signs, although color is not an issue. The small sign requirement is also true for North Haven - a big sign may be confiscated and the agent issued a fine.

Even with all of these rules about signs, Hamptons agents find ways to connect buyers to sellers. Because if there is one thing no law can change, it's the desire to be on the East End.