QR codes for real estate agents

Codes for every stage of a listing

• Yard signs. Link to the listing page, on a site you control. The next section explains why.
• Flyers in the box. The flyer has room for four photos. The code opens all forty, plus the floor plan. See QR codes on flyers for layout tips.
• Open house sign-in. A table card with a code to a short form: name, email, phone, and whether they're working with an agent. No clipboard, no handwriting to decipher.
• Your contact card. A contact card QR code on business cards and sign riders puts your name, mobile, email and brokerage in a buyer's phone in one tap.
• Virtual tours. Link the 3D tour or video walkthrough from flyers and listing sheets, so people can walk through again after they've left.

The sign outlives the listing

Signs and riders get reused. Flyers sit in kitchen drawers for months. If the code points at a listing on a portal, it breaks when the listing comes down, or lands on a page full of other agents' ads.

Point it at a page on your own site instead, such as yoursite.com/123-maple. While the house is for sale, that page shows the listing. After it sells, update it to show your current listings and a way to reach you. The printed code keeps working the whole time, and keeps sending people to you.

For a rider you move from sign to sign, link to a page like yoursite.com/listings and keep it current.

Sizing for the street

A yard sign is read from the sidewalk, not from arm's length. A good rule is about 1 cm of code width for every 10 cm of scanning distance, so a code 20 cm (8 in) square reads from around 2 m (6.5 ft). The size and printing guide has the full table.

Use a plain dark code on a white panel, with a clear margin around it, and print on outdoor vinyl or coroplast with a matte finish. Sun-faded or glossy codes are the ones that stop scanning.

What to avoid

Long open house forms. Visitors will give you a name and an email at the door. They won't fill in twelve fields. Keep a paper sign-in sheet as backup for anyone who'd rather write.

Codes placed where nobody can stop. On a busy road, put the code on the side of the sign that faces the sidewalk, not the traffic. And follow your brokerage's rules on what has to appear on a sign.

Before your next listing goes live

Set up the page on your own site, make the code from that address, and print a proof at full size. Stand at the end of the driveway and scan it with your phone. If it reads from there, it's ready for the sign.