Doorstep

Closing gift guide

Closing gifts for buyers: what helps in moving week, and what lasts

A gift for a buyer can do one of two jobs: help in the week they move, or still be in the house a year later. Very few do both. Here are eight ideas with rough costs, sorted by the job they do, and what changes for first-time, second-home and condo buyers.

Get your free proof
  • Free framing and shipping
  • Unlimited changes
  • Pay only when you approve
The finished portrait of that house, framed.

The short answer

The best closing gifts for buyers do one of two jobs: help in moving week, like dinner on the first night or a cleaning, or stay in the house for years, like a good doormat or a framed portrait of the home.

Bring a card to closing, and send the gift that lasts once they are settled.

A card at closing, the gift once they are settled

Closing day is signatures and wire confirmations, and anything you hand over gets carried out with the folders. Bring a handwritten card; what to write in a closing gift note has the wording. A moving-week gift has to arrive in moving week. Everything else lands better a week or two after the keys, when there is a wall to hang it on.

Closing gifts for home buyers that help in moving week

Practical and mostly consumable. None of it will be in the house next year, and that is fine.

$40 to $60

Dinner on the first night

Pizza sent to the new address, or a gift card to a restaurant near it. Order the food yourself if you can; a gift card on its own reads like an afterthought.

$75 to $150

A delivered gift basket

Coffee, snacks, a bottle, a candle. Useful the first weekend and nearly all gone in a month. Deliver it by hand: shipped baskets are where the chocolate melts and the wine goes missing. See what closing gift baskets cost delivered.

$150 to $250

A cleaning before the truck arrives

The most useful gift on this page and the least memorable. Book it for the day between closing and the movers.

About $20

A home binder

Your plumber, electrician and roofer, trash days, utility numbers, where the water shutoff is, and a sleeve for the closing documents. It costs an hour of your time, and a first-time or out-of-town buyer will reach for it most.

Gifts a buyer still has in a year

These do nothing on moving night.

$30 to $60

A good doormat

Used every day and seen by every visitor. Buy a plain, heavy one with no name on it, theirs or yours.

$40 to $90

An engraved cutting board

Plus shipping. Boards get used, which is a real point in their favor. Skip the address, which dates the board the day they move, and skip your logo.

$30 to $75

A plant, or a tree for the yard

Right for a buyer who gardens, a chore for one who does not. Ask before you send anything that needs a hole dug.

$79

A framed portrait of the house

Made from the listing photo, framed and ready to hang. It is the one gift on either list that is about this house and no other.

Pick one from each list if the budget allows; our guide on how much to spend on closing gifts covers the total.

Closing gift guide

The first house is the one people keep a picture of.

A framed house portrait in a red oak frame on a plaster kitchen wall, above a walnut counter run with a ceramic vessel and a potted herb.

First-time home buyers

The first house is the one people keep a picture of. It is rarely the nicest house they will own, and it is the one they tell stories about.

They have also just emptied their savings, and they own no ladder, no hose and no plumber. Give one from each list: the binder now, something for the wall once they are in. A starter condo or a small ranch makes as good a portrait as a showpiece, and a first house usually has bare walls.

Closing gifts for second-home and vacation-home buyers

A second-home buyer already owns the kitchen gear. The cutting board, the doormat and the candles are at the primary home. Consumables miss too: a basket sent to a lake house in the off season can sit on the porch until the next visit.

What they do not have is a way to see the new place every day. A portrait of the cabin, the beach house or the lake house can hang in the primary home and ship straight to that address. For the second home itself, give something local: a gift card to the marina, the ski shop or the one good restaurant in town.

Three buyers who need a different answer

Condo

Condo and apartment buyers

Skip anything for a yard or a front step they do not have. A portrait of a condo is a portrait of the building, from the street; we cannot work from interior photos only. If the building is a plain tower the buyer has no feeling for, give something for the inside instead.

Investor

An investor buying a rental

They will not live there, so nothing for the house itself makes sense. Send something to their own home or office. A portrait of the property suits the investor who keeps a record of what they own, and misses for one who sees it as a line on a spreadsheet. Ask first.

Renovating

A buyer planning a gut renovation

A portrait is the wrong gift for a buyer who plans to gut the place before it looks like theirs: the listing photo shows the last owner's house. Give from the moving-week list now. When the work is done, a portrait makes a good home anniversary gift.

The portrait, and how it works

For a buyer it is the house they just got the keys to: a framed portrait made from the listing photo you already have or a phone photo of the front. Ink and watercolor, framed in black, red oak or white, 8 × 10, no mat, ready to hang. Nothing is lettered on the print. The card in the box says who sent it and carries your note.

Upload the photo and the first proof comes back within two business days. Cars, signs and bins come out. Changes are free and unlimited. You pay $79 only when you approve, and the framed portrait arrives five to seven business days after that, shipped free in the US to you or straight to the buyer.

The trade-off is time. It is not a gift you can pick up for the closing table this week, and it does nothing in moving week.

  • BlackThe safe pick when you have not seen the inside of the home. Reads modern and disappears on any wall color.
  • Red oakWarm, visible grain. The one we would choose for a craftsman, a farmhouse or anywhere with wood floors.
  • WhiteFor bright, coastal and new-build interiors, and for kitchens and nurseries.

$79

  • Free framing and shipping
  • Unlimited changes
  • Pay only when you approve
Get your free proof
The framed 8 × 10 portrait in a black frame, hung on a wall above a console table.

Keep reading

Everything before you commit.

What is the average cost of a closing gift for a buyer?
Most agents land between $50 and $150. The fit matters more than the number: a $50 gift chosen for this buyer beats a $200 one that could have gone to anyone.
What is an inexpensive closing gift for a buyer?
A handwritten card with a bottle, or a bag of coffee from the shop nearest the new house, runs $25 to $50. Add a list of your own trades, which costs nothing.
What is a good closing gift for a luxury buyer?
Not a more expensive version of the usual. A buyer at the top of the market can buy any object you could, so choose something specific to the house or the town.
What do you give a buyer who travels a lot?
Nothing that needs watering, eating or signing for. Skip plants and perishable baskets, and hold any delivery until you know they are home. Something for the wall or the front door will wait for them.
What is a good closing gift for a home buyer with dogs?
If you met the dog, add a bag of treats from a local pet shop beside the card. Leave chocolate out of any basket, and check that a plant is safe for pets.
A framed house portrait in a black frame on a wide plaster wall, a low walnut bench along it and a potted fig at the edge.

A complete framed portrait for $79

It's their house. You already know they'll love it.

Send the listing photo of the house they just bought, and pay only when you approve the proof.

Get your free proofPay only when you approve