Home anniversary gifts from a realtor: nine ideas by budget

Costs are rough and per client. For the gift at closing itself, see our guide to closing gifts for buyers and how much to spend on one.

Under $10

A handwritten card

On its own, mailed to arrive the week of the closing date, the card is a complete anniversary gift for most of your list. One step up: tuck in a print of the photo you took of them with the keys on closing day. A drugstore print costs less than a dollar.

$15 to $40

Something small and local

A $20 gift card to the coffee shop nearest the house, named in your note, reads as local knowledge. A pie or a loaf from a bakery in their neighborhood, left at the door, costs about the same. A small potted plant or a bag of bulbs for the yard runs $25 to $40 and suits a client who gardens.

$30 to $90

Something for the house

A plain, heavy doormat is $30 to $60, and the one they bought in moving week has had a year of weather. An engraved cutting board runs $40 to $90 plus shipping; skip the address, which dates the board the day they move.

$79

For your best clients

A framed portrait of their house is $79 with the frame and US shipping included. It is the one idea here you could not send to any other client. A house cleaning runs $150 to $250 and is the most useful gift on this page.

Two or three sentences by hand. Copy one of these and change the middle line to something only the two of you would know.

• Year one: Happy first anniversary in the house. A year ago this week you got the keys. I hope it has felt like home in every season.
• Year five: Five years in the house this week. I still remember the showing where you stopped looking and started planning. I hope it has been good to you.
• Year ten: Ten years ago this week you signed for this house. A lot of life has happened in it since. I am glad I was there for day one.

Leave two things out of every one of them: what the house is worth now, and any ask. A card that carries either is a mailer, and clients can tell. For more wording, see what to write in a closing gift card.

Send the card alone when:

• The purchase came out of a hard year: a divorce, a death in the family, a move they did not choose. A quiet card is right and a celebration is not.
• You have not spoken since closing. A gift out of nowhere reads as the setup for an ask. Send the card this year and the gift next year.
• You gave a substantial gift at closing. The card is the follow-up.
• They may have sold, or be about to. Check before you send anything. A card about a house they no longer own is worse than no card.
• Your list is long and your budget is not. Sixty good cards beat ten gifts and fifty clients who heard nothing.

A house portrait is the wrong anniversary gift for a client who already got one at closing, and it is more than most of a long list needs. It fits two cases.

The first is the client who got a small gift at closing, or none. The anniversary is a second chance that does not look like one.

The second is the top of your past-client list: the handful of clients you know best, in year one or at a milestone like year five.

You already know the address, and the listing photo is usually still in your files. If they have repainted or redone the front since, that photo is out of date: drive by and take a phone photo of the front instead.

1. 01

   Pull the next three months of closing dates

   From your CRM or your closed files, list every client whose closing anniversary falls in the next 90 days. Do it once a quarter.

2. 02

   Sort the list in two

   Card only, and card plus gift. Be strict about the second group.

3. 03

   Write every card in one sitting

   Address them all, and pencil the mail-by date where the stamp goes. Mail each one about five days before its date.

4. 04

   Start anything made to order about three weeks ahead

   Portraits are ordered one per house, each on its own, all from one account. Upload the photos the day you write the cards.