A Guide to Designing Your Real Estate Business Cards

Designing your real estate business cards is the first thing to do when you start your real estate business.

Real Estate is a people business and handing out your real estate business cards is the first step towards establishing your brand and your relationship with prospects and customers. When you are meeting someone, giving your real estate business card breaks the ice and lets them review your contact information at a glance.

Given the limited amount of space on a business card, presentation and quality take on new meanings. Having a clear and professional business card with a high level or readability shows respect for your reader’s time and comfort. Font choice, a professional headshot, designations, and certifications say “professional expert.” Paper quality and finishing options convey reliability.

With all this in mind, we’ve put together some guidelines which will help you make the right choice when you design your real estate business cards.

What Information Should Go on Your Real Estate Business Cards?

Here are the 5 components of necessary information that should be included on your real estate business card.

1.      Contact details

Your contact information includes your phone numbers (office and cell), email address, and website URL.  You should check franchise-specific presentation criteria or applicable brand standards. Make sure that your information is legible. The font size of your contact information should be at least 8 points.

Use commonly accepted labels like Cell, Office, and Direct, to distinguish the types of phone numbers and use recognizable formats like (999) 999-9999 or 999-999-9999. Avoid using periods and other symbols in your phone numbers.  Optical scanners have difficulty with stylized fonts as well as special characters and symbols.

Avoid adding a fax number. Faxes are a thing of the past; you don’t’ need them. Everyone has a scanner or uses email these days.  You’ll save space, and look more up-to-date on business trends.

2.      Headshot

Should you include a photo? It’s your personal choice. Real estate is a highly personal service, and most agents add their photos to their cards to improve name-face recognition, and to build personal trust.

If you use a photograph, make sure it’s visually appealing and high quality. Consider having a professional headshot taken for this purpose. Wear professional attire, but also be sure you dress in a way that is representative of your audience’s taste and the level of formality they will expect from you in your role as an agent.

Professional photographers know what to do to ensure your photos meet the proper criteria for printing. The cost is usually about $75. If you don’t want to invest in a professional headshot, go to your local CVS, Walgreens, or Walmart where they offer low-cost photography services, sometimes for as little as $25, which includes digital files you can keep.

No matter what, use a current or at least recent photograph. If you use a photo that is more than a few years old, you will not be representing yourself accurately.

Photo Quality

Your photo should be clear and should have the right contrast and color neutrality. Color neutrality means that there isn’t an excess of pink, magenta, blue, or yellow, or poor lighting effect.  Since business cards print in a gang run (multiple sets) and are printed on a single sheet, if your image has an excess of any of these colors, they are likely to result in a bad print quality.

Your photograph should be of reasonable resolution or size in order to print well. At SureFactor, the print size on our business card headshots is as follows:

Small – An image of at least 220 by 300 pixels

Medium – An image of at least 266 by 400 pixels

Full – An image of at least 320 by 480 pixels

Example of a Small Size Photo

3.      Designations and certifications

Designations and certifications let your prospects and customers know what knowledge and skills you have acquired in your profession or within a particular practice area. These are certificates awarded after completion of courses associated with each designation.

Some of the designations awarded by NAR are:

• REALTOR™
• Equal Housing Opportunity
• Multiple Listing Service
• Accredited Buyer’s Representative® – ABR®
• Graduate, REALTOR® Institute – GRI
• Seller Representative Specialist – SRS
• Seniors Real Estate Specialist® – SRES®
• Short Sales & Foreclosure Resource® – SFR®
• etc.

The most common designations used by Real Estate Agents are REALTOR™, EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY, MULTIPLE LISTING SERVICE, AND CRB.

4.      Disclaimers

Individual franchises require the use of disclaimers on any marketing or advertising material including business cards.

If you are part of a larger franchise or brokerage, like RE/MAX, Keller Williams, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, etc., you should check franchise-specific presentation criteria, and see if you need to add disclaimers of any kind.

Examples of disclaimers that are used by Real Estate Agents and their franchises:

• Each office is independently owned and operated.
• Independently owned and operated.

SureFactor provides these disclaimers on every business card template.

5.      Backside 

Adding a backside to your business card gives you the opportunity to add utility or personality that makes your card one your prospects will look at more than once. Add a thank you note, tip chart, amortization schedule, calendar, or custom message. For new homeowners, the amortization schedule can be helpful, but so can a list of relevant documents they’ll need for their loan applications.

If you specialize in a certain niche market, such as seniors, foreclosures, or buyer’s representation, the backside might be the perfect place to mention that.

Whether you add a backside at all is up to you, but if you do, make sure utility comes first. You don’t need to add one simply because “Everyone else is doing it.”

Surefactor has several back templates for real estate agents that will meet your needs.

Other Considerations for Designing Your Real Estate Business Cards

What size do you need?

Go with the industry standard of 3.5″ X 2″. A 3.5”X 2” business card is designed to fit in a wallet and stay there. Anything non-standard is likely to be misplaced or will end up in the trash. Optical scanners also struggle with non-standard sized cards.

Paper / Substrate thickness and color

Choose 16 Pt or 14 Pt substrates. This thickness is perfect for business cards. Anything above 16Pt lacks flexibility. Anything below 14 Pt may turn out to be flimsy. As for coatings, choose a UV or Matt finish. A UV or Matt finish helps prevent scuffing or damage to your business cards.

Background

For any business card to print well, you need sufficient contrast.  Make sure that your choice of background and fonts provide you with that visual contrast.

Templates or Custom design

Today, online printers offer a variety of options and customized templates. SureFactor provides templates with just the right combinations based on years of research. Try one of our highly customizable templates, or a request a custom design. In either case, we will deliver the right balance of brand standard, readability, and print consistency. Our intuitive interface lets you choose from a wide variety of orientations, design templates, and fonts, and allows you to preview how even small changes to each will affect your final design.

Finishing options

Finishing options let you add that little something extra to your business card. Rounded edges, the smooth shine of high-gloss UV coat, and silk finish can help you stand out from the crowd. However, these options also increase your price, so carefully consider your budget and make the choice that’s right for you.

 Choose Surefactor for your Real Estate business cards!

If you are planning to order your real estate business cards soon, give us a try! We understand how important your story is, and want to help you tell it as persuasively as possible using our products.

We offer a highly customizable set of templates and design options that let you consider every one of the points made in this article with your individual business needs in mind. Best of all, we’ve streamlined this process, so it will take you fifteen minutes or less to design your real estate business cards. Your cards are delivered to you within 4 -6 business days of ordering.

The bottom line: Surefactor is faster, easier to use, and more affordable than any other online printer. Trust us with your real estate business cards and you won’t be disappointed.