We won’t police ourselves, so…..
Hat tip to SM for sending this in:
Link to ArticleJerry Del Mauro hoped to score a $1.4 million sale last month when he staged an open house near the water in Huntington Beach.
Instead of a sale, the Re/Max agent got a $2,750 fine for putting out too many open house signs.
Del Mauro said he had no choice. The house sat on an island at the end of a semi-desolate street almost 2 miles from the nearest traffic light. To guide buyers to his open house, he put out some 18 signs — 11 more than the city typically allows.
A city code enforcement officer spotted the signs and issued a citation, fining him $250 per “excessive” sign.
“These open house sign laws are getting out of control,” said one of the 140 comments on Del Mauro’s Facebook post following the citation.
City officials are “Nazi Sign Police,” another commenter said, and a third called the citation “a Communist joke.”
The case is one of the more extreme examples of ongoing tensions between real estate agents and city officials throughout the region – and across the country.
On the other side of the controversy are city employees who have been inundated with citizen complaints about the virtual forests of open house signs sprouting up on corners, median strips and curbside over the past three years, fueled by a frenzied housing market.
“We have received pushback from residents,” Huntington Beach code enforcement Supervisor Rich Massi said in an email. “A few Realtors … started to blanket the city with open house signs at various locations, which created a nuisance and blight.”
Massi said several other agents also have been cited for violating city sign policies, with fines ranging from $250 to $3,000.
Similar tensions have cropped up in cities throughout the region, and across the country.
“We are being bombarded, and Realtors aren’t taking their signs down,” said Lula Davis-Holmes, a Carson councilwoman for 11 years. “It became an eyesore. And it became a public safety issue.”
In February, a Tulsa, Okla., city councilman called all temporary signs — including open house placards — “litter on a stick” and sought to have them banned on public rights of way, the Tulsa World reported.
Davis-Holmes called open house signs antiquated in the internet age, questioning why agents even bother to hold open houses.
“My impression from real estate agents is those signs attract more lookie-loos than actual buyers,” she said.
But Kissinger, the South Bay Realtor official, said they may be antiquated, but signs remain the most effective way to draw buyers to an open house.
I know GPS is a British invention but are the satellites not American and the device available on every cell phone in the US?
If the Brits invented GPS then why is the 0, 0, 0 located in the courtyard of the Mitre Corp in Cambridge Massachusetts?
available on every cell phone in the US?
Great for those looking for open houses. We also like to appeal to the mooches and people who buy on a whim.
@ Jim, speaking as someone who actually has bought a house on a whim, it was the for sale sign in the yard that attracted me.
@ Rob, I think you will find the zero meridian passes through Greenwich in the UK. The 0.0.0 was thought up by your American company about 300 years later. GEE could ( using the method adopted by the GPS system) deliver a Lancaster bomber within 50 yards of a specified location in Germany during the second world war. The transmitters are no longer located in Britain but in geosynchronous orbit on American satellites and of course the receivers are a lot smaller nowadays 🙂
Buying on a whim – I recommend it!
Whim buying is more comfortable (and likely) if a great agent is running the open house. It’s too bad that open houses are usually run by trainees who miss the signs.
There is nothing paying less money can’t fix! You could stand in the kitchen of the whim house and see the sky and clouds by looking up. And yes the agent was professional enough to persuade her client that if I didn’t buy it probably no one else would, it was not the sort of house a woman would move into. Took me six months to fix up 🙂
“GEE could ( using the method adopted by the GPS system) deliver a Lancaster bomber within 50 yards of a specified location in Germany during the second world war.”
Who told you that?
You’re missing a hell of a lot of “as long as this wasn’t happening, and as long as that was happening, and as long as Hitler wasn’t doing that one thing he liked to do to screw it up.” Never talk up relatively modern British efficiency. It invites qualified ridicule. We didn’t tell them to go eff themselves for no good reason. Nothing’s changed. Brits still suck today. They trick you into paying attention to them so they can annoy you.
@ Daytrip. Navigation using time difference measurements of pulses received by a radio from multiple synchronized land based transmitters is GEE. From multiple synchronized space based transmitters is GPS.
Hint: The US navy coined the word radar (RAdio Direction And Ranging) for the British invention, the navigation comes from the ranging part if there are multiple transmitters.
Andrewa, I didn’t say GEE didn’t work. I’m saying it didn’t work as well as you implied during WWII.
WWII makes me mad in any case, worst war ever, so don’t take my complaints regarding the players personally.
GPS had it’s predecessor by 2 american physicists in reaction to the Soviet launch of Sputnik.
@Craig, look up the date Lancaster bombers were made (hint during the second world war) then look up when Sputnik was launched. Then tell me how the British were able to navigate with GEE/OBOE during the second world war if it was invented by two American physicists. P.S. geosynchronous orbits for ground telecommunications were invented by Arthur C. Clarke a science fiction writer, see his book Glide Path for his work with American physicist’s. ( hint: he was learning from them)