Best Real Estate Signs 2017 – Dee Sign vs Oakley Signs vs Build A Sign

Real estate signs are essential for advertising your open houses, listings, and building brand awareness. We looked at the most popular options and rising stars and decided to review Dee Sign, Oakley, and Build a Sign. These companies covered the range for agents and brokerages in terms of pricing and features. Read on for our comparison and review of these three options, as well as our top recommendations.

Best Real Estate Signs for Real Estate Agents and Brokerages: Dee Sign

We chose Dee Sign as the best real estate marketing sign company for agents and brokerages because of their multiple shipping locations, low pricing and wide variety of sign materials to choose from. They’ve also been in business for more than 40 years and are still family-owned and operated.

	Dee Sign	Oakley	Build a Sign
Price per unit for 10 yard sign panels 30x24 (aluminum, double sided)Learn More	$61.75(slightly thicker material + custom design included)	$39.93	$40.69
Price per unit for 10 Yard sign posts (colonial post 30” aluminum)Learn More	$62.10	$89.42	$66.25
Variety of sign materials availableLearn More	9 different materials: Works for a variety of climates and aesthetics	7 different materials: Works for a variety of climates and aesthetics	Aluminum and corrugated plastic only
Where do they ship from?Learn More	Southern California & Ohio	Des Plaines, Illinois	Austin, Texas
Turnaround Time Learn More	5-10 working days, most ship in 5	Ships no later than 6 business days for custom order	2-12 business days
Custom sign creation Learn More	Basic online designer + can upload artwork	Online designer+ can upload artwork	Online designer +can upload artwork
Franchises supportedLearn More	Most large franchises & many smaller brokerages (for full list click here)	Most large franchises & many smaller brokerages (for full list click here)	Century 21, RE/Max, Keller Williams, ERA, Coldwell Banker, Exit, Realty Executives, Berkshire Hathaway, Prudential
Reviews Learn More	4.5 stars on Activerain 2.5 stars on Yelp	3.8 stars on Activerain	4.7 stars on Google Trusted Stores
Customer Support Learn More	GreatPhone and email	GreatPhone and email	Great Phone and email
	www.DeeSign.com	www.OakleySign.com	www.BuildaSign.com

Best Overall Real Estate Signs for Real Estate Professionals: Dee Sign

For 45 years Dee Sign has been doing one thing and one thing only: Manufacturing, printing, and selling real estate signs. As a result, they have an incredible variety of real estate marketing materials and sign options available specifically designed for real estate agents and brokerages. We chose Dee Sign as the best option for Real Estate Professionals for the following reasons:

Low Pricing

Dee Sign has great pricing for the majority of the sign products they offer. They are generally cheaper or comparable to any sign company we looked at. When they do come in slightly more expensive as they do with the aluminum sign panels mentioned in the table, it’s because they offer a higher quality product and include design services in the price.

Multiple Shipping Locations

Dee Sign was the only real estate sign company we looked at that has multiple shipping locations. They have several facilities on the West Coast, as well as a facility in Ohio. That means faster shipping times for the West Coast as well as the Midwest and East Coast.

Wide Variety of Sign Materials

Dee Sign offers real estate signs in a dizzying array of materials to suit every budget and every area of the country. This is important as heat, rain, cold, and snow can all affect real estate signs differently. Aesthetics and longevity also play a role here.

Check out their video on which sign materials work best for each region below. Very useful!

They also have other great videos explaining installation and other helpful topics on their website.

Family Owned and Operated

Even though they are one of the largest players in the real estate sign market, Dee Sign is still a family-owned and operated company. If this matters to you (it should) Dee Sign should be your first call.

Drawbacks

The only real drawback we found with Dee Sign is that some of their stock sign designs for franchises look a little bit dated. While you can very easily get a professional-looking custom design on Fiverr or 99 Designs, some agents just want something ready to go. To see what we’re talking about, here is an example of a stock design for Keller Williams from Dee Sign:

However, it seems design quality can be hit or miss. For example, their sign templates for Sotheby’s look great:

While their franchise templates seemed to be hit or miss, their custom signs look great. Here’s an example:

Visit Dee Sign

Best Real Estate Signs for Variety of Franchises Supported: Oakley Signs

Oakley Signs offered templates for the largest number of real estate brokerages and franchises. For many Real Estate Professionals, a simple template will get the job done. If you just want quick, signs that already fit your brand, then Oakley Signs may be right for you.

Relatively Affordable Pricing

Oakley came at a lower price than the other two companies for sign panels at $39.93 and feather flags at $104, but at $89.42 their colonial posts were significantly more expensive than either Dee Sign or Build A Sign. This put them at the highest price for our sample order at $1813.50.

Drawbacks

Oakley is significantly more expensive for colonial posts and has a slightly less diverse selection of sign materials than Dee Sign.

Visit Oakley Sign

Other Sign Companies

Build a Sign had relatively low prices for our sample order (10 yard sign colonial posts, 10 30”x24” aluminum sign panels, 5 open house feather flags), high ratings on Google Trusted Stores, and online sign designer.

Drawbacks

The only real drawback with Build A Sign is that they are a generalist sign company rather than a real estate-specific company. While you can still very easily get great signs for a great price on Build A Sign, they don’t yet have a large number of built-in franchise stores offering sign templates for popular brokerages that Oakley and Dee Sign have. While this isn’t the end of the world, some agents and brokerages just want branded signs quickly and don’t want to worry about custom designs.

Visit Build a Sign

In-Depth Review: Dee Sign vs. Build A Sign vs. Oakley Signs

Pricing

Probably at the top of any newer agent or boutique broker/owner’s list, pricing was fairly similar across all companies. Slight variations in materials and sizes meant we would never be able to get an exact price match, but we feel our example order is representative of a first order for a newer agent or brokerage. Here’s how the three companies stacked up for pricing.

Pricing for same real estate signs order

	Dee Sign	Oakley	Build a Sign
Price per unit for 10 Yard sign posts (colonial post 30” aluminum)	$62.10	$89.42	$66.25
Price per unit for 10 yard sign panels 30x24 (aluminum, double sided)	$61.75(slightly thicker material + custom design included)	$39.93	$40.69
Price per unit for five open house feather flag w/ pole (8’ custom)	$91.80(7’ only)	$104	$131.74
Total for 10 post, 10 panels, and 5 open house feather flags	$1697.50	$1813.50	$1728.10

Dee Sign: For our example order Dee Sign came in with the best price. However, it should be noted that Dee Sign’s open house feather flags are a full foot shorter (6’ vs 7’) than the feather flags offered by the other two companies. This had a big effect on pricing.

Their aluminum sign panels were also a bit more expensive, but there are two good reasons for this: First, they are made of a thicker aluminum; .063 vs .040, and second, Dee Sign’s volume break starts at 12 units, For 12 units their price per unit for .040 sign panels is $52.50. Build a Sign doesn’t even offer .063, but Oakley charges $60.43 per unit for 12 .063 sign panels. For this sign configuration at least, Dee Sign is the clear winner.

Oakley: At $1813.50 Oakley was the most expensive option for our test order. However, this was largely due to the expense of their colonial posts which came in around $20 more per unit than either Dee Sign or Build A Sign.

Build a Sign came in at $1728.10, the second-lowest price for our example order. Their pricing for colonial posts was on par with Dee Sign and their pricing for sign panels were close to Oakley, but their feather flags were significantly more expensive.

Variety of sign materials available

Choosing the right materials for your real estate signs is always a toss-up between cost and needs. More durable materials are always more expensive, but sometimes there are happy mediums that will work for most situations. Here’s how the three companies stacked up for a variety of sign materials available.

Here’s a quick video from Dee Sign explaining the relative merits of each of their sign materials.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign offers sign panels in 9 different materials from hardboard to steel. This means you can find sign panels from Dee Sign to meet pretty much any budget or geographic area. Here is what they currently offer:

3/16 Hardboard (most popular choice) –
Polystyrene
.063 Reflective Aluminum (white areas reflect)
.063 Aluminum (weather-resistant, long-lasting, won’t rust)
.150 Polyethylene (it bows)
.063 Powder Coated Aluminum (longer lasting)
Expanded PVC
Durabond
Reflective Durabond
24 Gauge Steel – strong

They also offer UV coatings (keeps signs from fading in the sun), eyelets and grommets in on standard locations. This helps reinforce the holes sings hang from.

Oakley: Oakley has almost as many material options as Dee Sign. However, they don’t offer hardboard or powder-coated aluminum. Here’s what they offer.

Aluminum (.40 and .63)
Polyethylene
24 gauge Steel
PVC
8-mil Cor-x (corrugated plastic)
Styrene
Reflective Aluminum

Like Dee Sign Oakley has a great explainer video on their materials. Check it out here:

Build a Sign, on the other hand, only offers aluminum, reflective aluminum, and corrugated plastic for their sign panels. While aluminum is seen by many as a truly universal material for outdoor signs because it doesn’t rust or get damaged by the sun, having more options would be nice. Dee Sign takes the edge here.

Where Do They Ship From?

Since your real estate signs have to be loaded into trucks and shipped to your location, the location of your sign company is crucial for fast shipping. Here’s where the three real estate sign companies we looked at are located.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign has two locations, one in Southern California, and one in Ohio. That means that they can effectively cover the east and west coasts.

Oakley: Oakley is located in Des Plaines, Illinois. Great for people in the Midwest or east coast, but may mean longer shipping times for agents working on the west coast.

Build a Sign: Build A Sign is located in Austin, Texas. That means shipping to the Northeast or Northwest can take a long time.

Turnaround Time

After shipping distance, turnaround time is another important factor for many Real Estate Professionals. Of course, anticipating future growth and ordering in well in advance is recommended, but this is not always possible.

The only problem with measuring turnaround time accurately is that there are a lot of variables that can affect how long your order takes to finish. The size of the order, the materials used, and the season can all mean faster or slower turnaround times. Generally speaking, you should expect slightly longer turnaround times in the spring and summer when the market is busiest. In the fall and winter on the other hand, turnaround time should be faster. If you need a quick turnaround time, always confirm timing with the company before placing your order.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign actually published their turnaround times for 2011 and their information shows that the vast majority of their orders shipped in 5 days or less, but their turnaround time does go down significantly in the summer where only a little over half of their orders shipped within 5 days. Almost 100% of their orders shipped within ten days regardless of the season.

While this information is great to have, we wish Dee Sign would update their shipping information for 2016.

Oakley: Oakley promises a turnaround time of six business days which is comparable with Dee Sign. However, they also acknowledge that shipping times will vary during the busy months of March through June. Even better, if your order ships later than their estimate, they will deduct 5% off the price of the portion of the order that’s late.

Build a Sign: Build a Sign told us that most orders will ship in between two to twelve business days. Again, the size of the order and season will play a role in how quickly they can complete your order.

Custom Sign Creation

Let’s face it, even though some Real Estate Professionals will be perfectly content with stock templates, many will want totally custom designs. This is especially true for teams and boutique brokerages who will have more flexibility when it comes to branding.

Custom signs are handled three ways by most real estate sign companies.

They offer an online design tool that lets you design or customize your real estate sign
They allow you to upload custom artwork designed by your team or a graphic designer
They offer their own in-house design services to create your custom sign

Here’s how the three companies handled custom sign creation.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign offers an online design tool that lets you create a custom sign. However, the tool is very basic and difficult to use. If you can, we recommend avoiding their stock templates and going with a custom design. Dee Sign actually includes custom design services in their custom sign pricing. Alternatively, you can upload your own artwork and just have them print it. Here’s a great example of a custom printed sign from Dee Sign:

Oakley: Oakley has a very basic online sign creator and also offers the ability to upload your own artwork as well as fully custom design your real estate sign. They charge $75 per hour for design services. Oakley also offers very helpful tips and tricks for DIY design and uploading. They have great advice for file size, image resolution, file formats and more. We wish more companies would publish specifications for sign artwork.

Build a Sign: Like Dee Sign, Build A Sign also offers an online custom sign creator. It’s much more advanced than Dee Sign’s but we still found it difficult to use. There are limited colors and fonts to choose from and the work area is too small to precisely layout your sign. That said, it can work in a pinch. Just don’t ask a graphic designer to use it (unless you want to make them jump out a window). Here’s what it looks like:

Also like Dee Sign, Build A Sign offers in-house design services to help create your sign. However, they are not included in the sign price and start at $19.95 for basic design assistance. That means color matching, converting files, background removal etc. They also offer full custom layouts that start at $59.95.

Franchises Supported

If you’re an agent or team working for a national franchise like Keller Williams, then it might make sense to go with a real estate sign company that supports your brokerage. That said, all this support really entails is offering templates that are on-brand and will work well for the franchise you work for. Since your sign will need to be customized with your name and contact information anyway, many Real Estate Professionals opt for a fully custom sign design. This makes franchise support much less important. For boutique brokerages, it’s a moot point.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign offers sign templates for all the major franchise brokerages. Keller Williams, Century 21, RE/Max, Coldwell Banker, and ERA. They also supply real estate signs for many other franchises and brokerages including Berkshire Hathaway, Prudential, and Sotheby’s. To see if your brokerage is on the list click here.

Oakley: Oakley not only covers the major franchise brokerages, but goes a step further and includes local franchises (e.g. Keller Williams Honolulu) and dozens of more franchises. If you want a template ready to go then Oakley may be your best bet. For a full list of the brokerages Oakley Signs offers sign templates for, click here.

Build a Sign: Like Dee Sign, Build A Sign offers templates for the largest real estate franchises. They also offer real estate signs for Prudential, Berkshire Hathaway, Better Homes and Gardens, Exit, and Realty Executives. These are the only signs Build A Sign currently supports.

Reviews

While taking online reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, social proof is still a pretty good way to get a thumb in the air reading of a company. Here’s how the three companies did with online reviews.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign has great reviews on Activerain, though it should be noted that there are less than 20 total reviews for the company there. On Yelp the reviews are far more mixed, with roughly half the reviews negative and half positive. Again, there are only 20 or so total reviews on Yelp so it is hard to make a judgement based on so few reviews when we’re talking about a large company that has been in business for more than 40 years.That said, we would have liked to see Dee Sign respond to their critics on Yelp. There was one customer in particular that appeared to have received two copies of the same sign that looked to be of very different quality. While there are a lot of variables here that might account for the differences, a response from Dee Sign would go a long way toward reassuring future customers.

Oakley: Like Dee Sign, Oakley has great reviews on Activerain, albeit less than twenty of them in total. They also have very positive Yelp reviews… well, to be more accurate we should say Yelp review since they only have one.

Build a Sign: Though they weren’t reviewed on Activerain, Build A Sign has more than 5,000 excellent reviews on Google Trusted Stores. The great thing about reviews on Google Trusted Stores is that only customers can leave reviews. That means faking reviews is extremely difficult.

Customer Support

Since real estate signs are often a custom (not to mention expensive) purchase, great customer service is a must. Here’s how the three companies stacked up for customer service.

Dee Sign: Dee Sign responded to our calls quickly and answered all the questions we had. That said, there are mixed reviews of their customer service on Yelp. Their hours for phone and email customer service are as follows:

Ohio Corporate Office
8am – 4:30pm
(Eastern Time)

Los Angeles Office
9:00am – 5:00pm
(Pacific Time)

Oakley: Oakley Signs also answered our questions quickly and professionally. Their phone and email customer service hours are as follows:

Monday-Friday
9:00am-5:00pm
(Pacific time)

Build a Sign: Build A Sign also answered our questions quickly and professionally. Their phone and email customer service hours are as follows:

Monday-Friday
7:00am – 9:00pm
(Central Time)

Saturday
9:00am – 6:00pm
(Central Time)

All Real Estate Sign Options with Sample Pricing

Company	Colonial Post Signpost	Sign Panel (30x24)	Feather Flags	Directional Open House Signs
DeeSign.com	(10 aluminum) $62.10	(12 hardboard) $31.60	(7’ custom 12) $68.90	(25 custom w/ stake) $16.50
OakleySign.com	(10) $87.09	(10) $37.29	(8’ custom 10+) $68.79	(25) $6.37 each
BuildASign.com	(12 aluminum) $73.14	(5 aluminum) $37.95	(8’ custom 10+) $149.99	(25 custom) $12.44
LowenSign.com (DA 32)	(5+ aluminum) $67.55	(10 steel) $33	(9’ custom 10+ ) $73.55	(25 custom w/ stake) $13.35
Signazon.com	(10 PVC) $95.99	N/A	N/A	(25 custom) $12.34
SignsOnTheCheap.com	N/A	N/A	N/A	(20) $5.49

The Bottom Line

While there are a lot of places to buy real estate signs, we chose Dee Sign as our top pick because of their multiple shipping locations, low pricing, wide variety of sign materials to choose from and the fact that they have been in business for more than 40 years.

Visit Dee Sign

About the Author

Emile L'Eplattenier