The Official Guide to Realtor & Loan Officer Closing Gifts

A thoughtful gift to welcome clients to their new home can go a long way for your business. We are often asked by realtors and mortgage loan officers what the best gifts are for a housewarming-inspired settlement gift for their real estate clients. A ‘new home’ themed settlement gift can help increase referrals as well as leave current clients with a lasting good impression.

Today we are sharing our top suggestions for real estate gifting, whether you are a realtor, a home stager, a loan officer or work for a title company. No matter your role in the real estate field, these tips will make closing gifts easy and stress-free!

Semi-Custom Branded Real Estate Gifts

Our Add-Your-Own-Logo Program is the ideal way to add a special, personalized touch to your real estate client gifting. We make gifting easy with our wide selection of high-end curated gift boxes. From there, we will add your logo and company branding to the gift for an elevated and cohesive look. For busy, on-the-go realtors and loan officers, our Add-Your-Own-Logo program eliminates the stress of figuring out what type of gift to choose and having to take the time to put together gift boxes or gift bags for your clients.

Real Estate Gifting Tip 1: Don't Forget Referrals

Our first piece of advice is to establish two different gifts in your arsenal. The reason for this is because you'll want to gift your clients at closing but the ultimate goal is for your clients to refer you to others after their positive experience with you. In these cases, if you only have one gift box in your rotation, then you risk having to gift them the same gift twice or else be scrambling at the last minute to figure out what to gift, neither of which are ideal. We recommend having a different gift for each occasion - gifts for settlement and gifts for referrals.

Real Estate Gifting Tip 2: Anticipate Repeat Referrals

Once you have your two gifting levels set, one for closing and one for referrals, you can then come up with additional gift options for clients who give you multiple referrals. Even with two gifting options in your arsenal, if a client sends you multiple referrals, you likely don't want to send them the exact same gift box as a thank you. 

For these repeat referral gifts, you could convert to a handwritten thank you note or a simple bottle of wine. Remember that not each referral needs to get it's own full blown curated gift box. You can alternate to keep things interesting! We recommend the following sequence to our clients: full-blown curated gift box at closing, a slightly scaled-down curated gift box for the first referral, a handwritten note card for the second referral, then another gift box with different contents than the previous gift boxes, then a scaled-back gesture gift such as a candle or bottle of wine, and so on and so forth. You definitely want to acknowledge those referrals but the appreciation gift doesn't need to be over the top each time. 

Real Estate Gifting Tip 3: Feature Home-Inspired Contents

At Team M&G, we love a good theme! The natural direction for contents for realtor closing gifts is obviously home-inspired items and mainly items that are reusable in nature. Sure, food baskets are a nice gesture, but we think keepsake items are much more special. (And will have your clients thinking of you long into the future!) Think throw blankets, tea towels, candles, decorative tins of tea, wooden snack bowls, kitchen soap sets, and so on.

Practical items can go a long way during a busy move-in day and will have a lasting impact. These are items that are very on-brand for realtors and more importantly, will be items that last a while around the house and as a result, recipients are more likely to keep you top of mind. 

Real Estate Gifting Tip 4: Feature Locally-Sourced Contents

Another great direction to go in for realtor settlement gifts and even realtor referral gifts is focusing on locally-sourced items. This is a great way to make food-based gifts a whole lot more interesting, especially if you try to feature small artisan brands that perhaps your clients have yet to discover! They'll feel intrigued by each and every item that they discover inside the gift set and will likely appreciate that you're supporting small local businesses at the same time!

Real Estate Gifting Tip 5: Create A Celebratory Vibe

Closing on a home is a big deal and often the culmination of some fairly stressful weeks and months! Another theming direction to consider for realtor gifts is a celebratory vibe. Think a bottle of bubbly, champagne flutes, and some really nice chocolates. This is a little more traditional, and some might even say expected, but if you focus on presentation and quality over quantity, your gifts are sure to have an impact!

Real Estate Gifting Tip 6: Show Off Your Brand

When it comes to business gifting, there is such thing as too much branding and there is also such thing as too little branding when it comes to client gifts. We always advise our clients that upon receiving the gift, the recipient should immediately know who the gift is from before even opening the card if there is one. This means showing off your brand front and center. Whether it be a logo gift tag or a branded belly band, you should absolutely show off your branding in your settlement gifts. It will pull the gift together and add the last finishing touch of polish that you're looking for.

Plus, always a bonus, people are usually sharing anything and everything on social media, including gifts they receive. This is awesome advertising for you! Whatever you do though, please know that we're not proponents of adding your logo to every single item in the gift. That's overkill and not necessary except in rare circumstances. If you brand a gift too much it can lead to the gift looking sterile, impersonal, or dare I say like "cheesy corporate swag". For specific tips on making your corporate gifts more personal, get our past advice on making corporate swag feel personal.

Real Estate Gifting Tip 7: Include A Heartfelt Note

Our final gifting tip for real estate settlement gifts is to always include a personal note. A branded notecard with a sincere heartfelt note of gratitude is an absolute must. This is what takes the gift to a whole new level. It's really THAT important. When you take a well-curated, intentionally-designed gift (which shows you care) and then pair it with the words to match (which also shows you care), you're creating an actual experience for your clients that will stick with them for months and years to come. Don't miss an opportunity and simply include a card with "to & from". Take the extra moment to write a note of thanks. It can even be the same note across the board for all of your real estate clients and those who send you referrals. The key is that it's expressive and from the heart. 

We hope these tips are useful in curating impactful real estate settlement and  referral gifts. Going the extra mile to show how much you appreciate your clients can help take your business to the next level. 

If you would like to outsource your real estate gifting, reach out to our team of gifting experts to see how we can help create impactful custom client gifts. If fully custom gift sets are not your style, inquire about our Add-Your-Own-Logo program for easy client gifting. You can also shop our collection of ready-to-ship housewarming gift sets or realtor closing gift sets.

Happy real estate business gifting!

3 WAYS TO DO GIFTING WITH MARIGOLD & GREY

Images: Lissa Ryan Photography