A Letter from Every Multifamily Team That’s Ever Been Voluntold to Handle Signage.
We love our jobs. Just not this part.
Dear Owners, Developers, Regional Directors, and Anyone with a Budget and a Vision,
We love you.
We love your buildings.
We love a good grand opening, a rebrand, a lease-up, or a major rehab.
We even love a wild idea at the last minute.
But we’ve gotta talk about something.
Please, for the love of all things branded, stop voluntelling us to lead the signage.
You know what we mean:
“Can marketing just handle it?”
“Have the PM find a local vendor.”
“Maybe the assistant can knock out a quick banner.”
From the outside, it looks simple. But on the inside?
It’s a high-stakes, code-laden, multi-vendor storm and we’re over here pretending we know what substrates are!
So in the spirit of honesty (and love), here’s what actually happens when signage gets handed off to someone who’s never done it before.
1. “We Just Need Some Signs” Turns into Total Chaos
We’re told to just “get a few signs up” but no one gives us a site plan, a sign schedule, or a list of what’s actually needed.
So we guess.
We over-order or under-order.
We find out too late we needed a permit.
And we usually realize something’s missing after install day.
Cost: $3,000–$5,000 in reprints, rush jobs, and backpedaling
2. Design Takes Over. Operations Pays the Price.
Marketing makes it look beautiful.
But then the fonts are too small. The ADA signs are wrong. And the leasing banner looks amazing, just not readable from the street.
Design-led with no operational oversight = signage that doesn’t perform.
Cost: Failed inspections, brand inconsistencies, and wasted budget on signs that don’t do their job
3. Permitting? What Permitting?
Let’s be real—we don’t know the code.
We don’t know what requires a permit.
And we definitely don’t have time to call the city.
So the sign goes up… and down it comes.
Cost: Red tags, delays, and reprints…not to mention the hit to our credibility
4. Vendor Roulette Wastes Time and Budget
We Google. We call around. We get three wildly different quotes.
Half don’t include install. One’s missing materials. One can’t even start for three weeks.
We don’t speak signage. And we’re making decisions with no real comparison point.
Cost: Hours lost, thousands overspent, and still… bad signs
The Real Problem? No One's Owning the Whole Picture.
We’re good at our jobs. But signage is its own job.
It’s strategy.
It’s compliance.
It’s materials.
It’s installation logistics.
It’s municipal requirements and timelines and vendors and brands and a million moving parts.
And we’re being asked to wing it between back-to-back meetings.
So Here’s What We All Wish You’d Do:
Let Resident lead it.
Not because we can’t. But because they’ll do it better and we’ll all look good.
Resident will:
Walk the site (or read the blueprints for us)
Build the sign schedule
Handle permitting research
Design with code and brand in mind
Bid it out to real fabricators
Coordinate installation
Keep us looped in, not buried in it
We still get credit. But we don’t get buried in signage hell. Win-win.
With love and exhaustion,
Marketing.
Property Management.
Leasing.
The Assistant.
The Regional.
Everyone who’s ever been voluntold to figure out signage.
You’ve got a team to run. Let us run the signage.
