Realtors Move to Stem Signs of Clutter : Brokers Want to ‘Clean Up Own Act’ as Open-House Postings Proliferate
San Fernando Valley real estate brokers are getting carried away with “open house” signs and risk a crackdown by city officials if they don’t control themselves.
So says Temmy Walker, president of the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors, who warns that board officials are getting as many as 10 complaints a day from Valley residents who are upset by the proliferation of signs pointing the way to open-house showings of homes for sale.
“One caller said he had collected and thrown away 150 signs,” Walker wrote in a recent board newsletter. In an interview, she said: “It has become so abusive that it’s outrageous.”
‘Clean Up Own Act’
Other real estate agents agree that the signs may be getting a little out of hand, especially when they aren’t taken down after open-house showings are over.
“If the brokers don’t clean up their own act, the city’s going to clean it up for us,” said Stan Weinsheink, general manager of SW Realty in Canoga Park.
Jerry Berns, president of the Sherman Oaks realty firm that bears his name, acknowledged that his company is among those with the most signs on weekends, when many real estate firms try hardest to entice house hunters.
But, he said, his policy is to get a property owner’s permission before placing a sign, and to make sure that the sign is removed by nightfall.
He said others who post many Sunday signs are the Mike Glickman and Fred Sands real estate firms, and he has made overtures to the competition about getting together to cut down on signs.
Walker, a vice president for administration with the Sands agency, said that she is stressing sign removal to her firm’s sales managers and that Sands signs now come down on time. She added that since her May 6 newsletter, other firms’ open-house signs in the section of Tarzana where she lives have begun disappearing on Sunday nights.
Elaborate Tracking System
Mike Glickman Realty claims to post more signs in the Valley than any other agency. The firm’s chief operating officer, Michael Pennell, said the company puts out about 500 signs a weekend and uses an elaborate system to keep track of them. As a result, he said, only two or three are lost every weekend.
“A homeowner is not going to let their house stay listed with you if you don’t put out two or three signs,” Pennell said. “They expect this. They demand it.”
He added that the problem will fade when the real estate market or the weather cools. Realtors say open houses are best attended when the weather is nice.
Walker noted that Beverly Hills bans the signs altogether, and that there are proposals in City Hall to restrict them in Los Angeles.
City law now bars signs from public property, which includes the grassy curb-side strips known as parkways, where the signs often are planted. But city inspectors work Monday through Friday, so signs posted and removed during the weekend usually escape their notice.
And although posting signs on public property is a misdemeanor, offenders rarely are charged.
“We have an enforcement problem,” said William White, chief inspector of the city’s Bureau of Street Management. “The agency enforcing it has to actually observe someone” in the act, he said.
As a result, Mayor Tom Bradley’s administration is working on a new law that would make enforcement easier, but no legislation has been drafted. Meanwhile, White said, he gets lots of complaints, although none specifically about real estate signs in the Valley.
