Does anyone have any tips for getting started in real estate video/photo? I've been flying drones for a while and I work full time in video production and I'm interested in doing some real estate shoots. Any advice would be great. Thanks!
How did you get your first gig?
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First question would be have you passed your FAA part 107 if you are in the US?
Going to need to have that before trying to do it for profit.
I found a few people and offered one flight as a free promo. Helps get experience and your work shown around.
Going to need to have that before trying to do it for profit.
I found a few people and offered one flight as a free promo. Helps get experience and your work shown around.
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#1. Get your Part 107 certificate if you haven't already done so.
I've had several realtors come to me after I mentioned flying. I haven't shot anything for them yet because I haven't taken my Part 107 test yet.
A few weeks ago a relative asked me to do a shot of the back of their house from the lake side (not a paid job, just "as a relative"). I turned them down because they're about a mile from the airport and well inside of a Class C airspace. I didn't want to take a chance and mess up my certification before I even got it (as a hobbyist, I shouldn't fly within 5 miles of an airport. As a commercial operator, I'd have to apply for an FAA waiver).
I've had several realtors come to me after I mentioned flying. I haven't shot anything for them yet because I haven't taken my Part 107 test yet.
A few weeks ago a relative asked me to do a shot of the back of their house from the lake side (not a paid job, just "as a relative"). I turned them down because they're about a mile from the airport and well inside of a Class C airspace. I didn't want to take a chance and mess up my certification before I even got it (as a hobbyist, I shouldn't fly within 5 miles of an airport. As a commercial operator, I'd have to apply for an FAA waiver).
I do have my Part 107, passed about a month and half ago and just got my official certificate in the mail. The free promo is a good idea. I may try that. Are realtors more interested in aerial photos are video from your experience?
A a hobby flier, you only have to contact the airport and let them know where/when you will be flying when within 5 miles. With the Part 107, you will have to go through the FAA site to request an authorization, not a waiver.
As a Realtor for 14 years and also a drone operator, I can give you some good tips to get started. Good news is the National Association of Realtors and Forbes magazine listed real estate drone photography as one of the top 3 biggest trends for real estate in 2017. Here is what to do:
1. Get your part 107 license. If you are getting paid, you are commercial. Many realtors might pay you on the cheap to do some aerial vids and not even question your credentials because they are clueless as to the rules, but the minute something goes wrong..ie: crash and property damage, neighbor complains or reports them, realtor gets called out by local mls asking for certification (yes this happens in some areas), etc, that realtor will throw you under the bus so fast it will make your head spin.
2. Study what the already established pros do. There are many professional websites for real estate drone videos across the country. They all have sample videos of their work on their websites. Watch and take notes of the time, sequences and angles and such. The average drone portion of a real estate video should be no more than 45-60 seconds. The average real estate virtual tour is 4 minutes total, inside and out. Your drone footage can only take up a small amount of it.
3. Make 2-3 excellent demo vids to show the realtors. The average "busy" realtor will give you about 10 min. to make your pitch. They need to be impressed in a short amount of time. Ask friends or family members to let you shoot their house for practice to make some good ones.
4. Go to a couple of the largest real estate offices in your area and find out who the "big dogs" in the office are. Go to them and offer to do a freebie or two. Many will let you if they are impressed with your demos. Realtors are very loyal to their "good" vendors and they will keep sending business your way if they are impressed.
5. Ask them to recommend you. Word of mouth will be your absolute best friend. Realtors get most of their good vendors from the word of other Realtors. If I need a good handyman, I ask other Realtors in my office. I don't go to Angie's list and such.
6. Find out who the local realtors are using for their regular pics and virtual tours on their listings. You will find there are many of them, big and small. I have several people that I use and most don't offer drone service...yet. My best guy for pics has a studio taking family pics and such and he does the best real estate pics of anyone around, and he is very reasonable. But he has no desire or time to learn how to do drones. Mainly, the larger mainstream companies are the ones who do, and for an extra $150-$250. Many of the smaller guys have not found it feasible yet to invest and train for this technology. But, with this fast growing trend and publicity of the value and demand of this service, it won't take long for them to catch on. Get with them and offer to be an add on and work out a split with them. They will welcome you for the convenience of not having to invest in this technology. Win win for both of you.
7. Go to sales meetings to pitch your services. Every real estate office has sales meetings several times a month. Usually this is done in the mornings. My office does it every other Tuesday at 9am. We always have several vendors who are given the chance to pitch their services. But, it will cost you. You have to feed us! They always bring breakfast or goodies. Feed me and I will listen! LOL
I hope this helps to give you some insight to get started. There is alot of opportunity in this area and you are considering it at the perfect time. Ignore the other threads on here that say most Realtors will just start doing it themselves. Most are too busy and to "technology challenged" to learn it. 3/4 of them know how to turn on the computer, check their e-mail, and send a contract. That's it. Filming, editing and posting videos...not going to happen. Good luck my friend.
1. Get your part 107 license. If you are getting paid, you are commercial. Many realtors might pay you on the cheap to do some aerial vids and not even question your credentials because they are clueless as to the rules, but the minute something goes wrong..ie: crash and property damage, neighbor complains or reports them, realtor gets called out by local mls asking for certification (yes this happens in some areas), etc, that realtor will throw you under the bus so fast it will make your head spin.
2. Study what the already established pros do. There are many professional websites for real estate drone videos across the country. They all have sample videos of their work on their websites. Watch and take notes of the time, sequences and angles and such. The average drone portion of a real estate video should be no more than 45-60 seconds. The average real estate virtual tour is 4 minutes total, inside and out. Your drone footage can only take up a small amount of it.
3. Make 2-3 excellent demo vids to show the realtors. The average "busy" realtor will give you about 10 min. to make your pitch. They need to be impressed in a short amount of time. Ask friends or family members to let you shoot their house for practice to make some good ones.
4. Go to a couple of the largest real estate offices in your area and find out who the "big dogs" in the office are. Go to them and offer to do a freebie or two. Many will let you if they are impressed with your demos. Realtors are very loyal to their "good" vendors and they will keep sending business your way if they are impressed.
5. Ask them to recommend you. Word of mouth will be your absolute best friend. Realtors get most of their good vendors from the word of other Realtors. If I need a good handyman, I ask other Realtors in my office. I don't go to Angie's list and such.
6. Find out who the local realtors are using for their regular pics and virtual tours on their listings. You will find there are many of them, big and small. I have several people that I use and most don't offer drone service...yet. My best guy for pics has a studio taking family pics and such and he does the best real estate pics of anyone around, and he is very reasonable. But he has no desire or time to learn how to do drones. Mainly, the larger mainstream companies are the ones who do, and for an extra $150-$250. Many of the smaller guys have not found it feasible yet to invest and train for this technology. But, with this fast growing trend and publicity of the value and demand of this service, it won't take long for them to catch on. Get with them and offer to be an add on and work out a split with them. They will welcome you for the convenience of not having to invest in this technology. Win win for both of you.
7. Go to sales meetings to pitch your services. Every real estate office has sales meetings several times a month. Usually this is done in the mornings. My office does it every other Tuesday at 9am. We always have several vendors who are given the chance to pitch their services. But, it will cost you. You have to feed us! They always bring breakfast or goodies. Feed me and I will listen! LOL
I hope this helps to give you some insight to get started. There is alot of opportunity in this area and you are considering it at the perfect time. Ignore the other threads on here that say most Realtors will just start doing it themselves. Most are too busy and to "technology challenged" to learn it. 3/4 of them know how to turn on the computer, check their e-mail, and send a contract. That's it. Filming, editing and posting videos...not going to happen. Good luck my friend.
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I pretty much followed this path too... I went out and shot my own photos and videos then used iMovie and Photoshop to make the videos awesome.
For quick presentation, I put up a Facebook Business Services page and organized my services, photos and demo videos.
Honestly, I feel like photos are a little of a commodity and most people can do it without a lot of issues. SO, I wanted to really shoot some nice promotional videos, as a lot of realtors in our market use social video to market listings.
Show expertise in this area!
Once I had some good looking work and definition of what I offer, I went through my Facebook and invited every real estate agent that has friended me over the past two years marketing their service to me.
THEN, I contacted two young progressive realtors who had recently purchased a boutique agency with about 30 realtors and offered them some freebie video and photos...
They have now put my name out to their realtors that I am the MAN.
I have also started to pick up leads from those other realtors whom I invited to Facebook, as my page has a lot of good examples of solid work.
I have also kept my prices reasonable for my local area as a way to 1) win the business and 2) build relationships. BUT every PayPal invoice has a higher price on it with a discount at the bottom, so that I am not setting the bar too low.
Lastly, when business slows down, I pull up relator.com and start going through listings over $400K in my area and any that do not have aerials, I begin emailing the realtors and offering a "New Client Discount" to get in the door. Normally, a $150 shoot for $50-75, depending upon the potential.
Make sure to ask for reviews on Facebook... 1) they got a deal, so they should support you and 2) it is a built in referral that now you control.
Facebook: 需要安全验证
Website (under development): dpwarren phototgraphy
I'd love to hear what others have done!
For quick presentation, I put up a Facebook Business Services page and organized my services, photos and demo videos.
Honestly, I feel like photos are a little of a commodity and most people can do it without a lot of issues. SO, I wanted to really shoot some nice promotional videos, as a lot of realtors in our market use social video to market listings.
Show expertise in this area!
Once I had some good looking work and definition of what I offer, I went through my Facebook and invited every real estate agent that has friended me over the past two years marketing their service to me.
THEN, I contacted two young progressive realtors who had recently purchased a boutique agency with about 30 realtors and offered them some freebie video and photos...
They have now put my name out to their realtors that I am the MAN.
I have also started to pick up leads from those other realtors whom I invited to Facebook, as my page has a lot of good examples of solid work.
I have also kept my prices reasonable for my local area as a way to 1) win the business and 2) build relationships. BUT every PayPal invoice has a higher price on it with a discount at the bottom, so that I am not setting the bar too low.
Lastly, when business slows down, I pull up relator.com and start going through listings over $400K in my area and any that do not have aerials, I begin emailing the realtors and offering a "New Client Discount" to get in the door. Normally, a $150 shoot for $50-75, depending upon the potential.
Make sure to ask for reviews on Facebook... 1) they got a deal, so they should support you and 2) it is a built in referral that now you control.
Facebook: 需要安全验证
Website (under development): dpwarren phototgraphy
I'd love to hear what others have done!
Wow Aerial Cinemagic and dpwarren, thank you guys so much for that advice! Dpwarren, you mentioned a $150 shoot.
That's all you charge? Is that exterior video only? How long would the deliverable be, and how much time do you spend in post that you can price so low?
That's all you charge? Is that exterior video only? How long would the deliverable be, and how much time do you spend in post that you can price so low?
That's actually not low. Remember, your drone footage will be only a small part of a home virtual tour. Virtual tours of homes are only 3-5 minutes long tops. The exterior drone footage can only take up approximately 30-60 seconds of this time. The Virtual tour guys charge anywhere from $100-$300 for the ground based video and pics of the inside and outside. The drone footage is just an add-on. No realtor is going to give you any more than $150 for this. The realtor has to pay for pics and video and we are cheapskates. I will never pay more than $400 total for a photo/video shoot for one of my listings. (unless it is a big $1M plus listing) Until you can start shooting the entire thing, inside and out with your drone, you will just be an add-on and never worth more than $150. Right now, drones are not small enough or stable enough to do interior footage of most average homes. Too risky for damage.
Thanks for the reply. I was assuming that most aerial videographers were running Osmos or similar inside as well and offering a full package. The real estate market in my area has a lot of $4M+ ranches with nice houses on them. A lot of people keeping horses and such. It's just outside the foothills of the Rockies, so views are spectacular too. I'm hoping that these types of listings will place a lot more value on the exterior shots.
I first suggest you find out how many others are doing this already. The market can get saturated in a hurry. The best advice I can give ANY new start-up (especially in this potentially full market) is to take the time to do a solid Business Plan. Creating this BP will teach you so much about your company, your market, and your competition. Also a BP might be required if you ever plan to get some capitol in the future to grow your business. It takes time and some research but in the process you'll learn so MUCH. I'd say a good solid BP would be worth a thousands to a real business.
If you're the only gig in town or at least very few your prices can reflect this. If every Tom, ****, and Harry in town are doing this already (and many Realtors have gotten their 107 so they can do it themselves) your prices are going to be lower. Also don't be surprised if your competition does NOT have their Part 107. Some people are still in denial or just reluctant to invest in it.
I don't suggest working for free because you set a precedence that's very hard to get over. First client discounts are expected and encouraged but giving your work away can lead you down the rabbit hole and it's hard (most of the time but not always) to get back out. Your time is worth $$ so don't sell yourself out from the get-go.
Whatever you do you'll want to hone your skills flying, photographing, videoing and EDITING. When editing you're not just putting a bunch of stuff together you need to tell a story. You need to tease the viewer and leave them wanting to see more. Your goal is to show them enough to make them want to see it in person. If you show them every aspect of the home/property then you didn't leave them wanting/needing to see the listing in person.
Next brush up on your marketing/social skills and don't be afraid to dress up nice for clients. Most Realtors are professionals and they appreciate working with industry professionals so dress and act the part.
Get all of your ducks in a row before approaching the first potential client. We started off with business cards, flyers, banners, and logo'd freebies on our first client meeting. Get LOTS of business cards and don't be afraid to hand them out often. If I meet a prospective client while eating dinner I hand them a card and the back it states something like "$50 off your first listing with ABC Co". This wets their whistle.
Sign up for every "Realtor Event" you can. Support the local Board of Realtors and do things with them. We join them for community events and fund raisers throughout the year. It not only shows we support them but we are also out there in the community trying to give back. The local BOR voted our company "Associate Member of the Year" for 2016 and awarded us a plaque to commemorate it. Guess who the Big Dog in town is?
Lastly if no other sUAS companies are currently active with the Chamber of Commerce don't be afraid to join them. They are great assets so long as you don't have competition already with them. If so then don't bother because they won't push one or the other.
If you're the only gig in town or at least very few your prices can reflect this. If every Tom, ****, and Harry in town are doing this already (and many Realtors have gotten their 107 so they can do it themselves) your prices are going to be lower. Also don't be surprised if your competition does NOT have their Part 107. Some people are still in denial or just reluctant to invest in it.
I don't suggest working for free because you set a precedence that's very hard to get over. First client discounts are expected and encouraged but giving your work away can lead you down the rabbit hole and it's hard (most of the time but not always) to get back out. Your time is worth $$ so don't sell yourself out from the get-go.
Whatever you do you'll want to hone your skills flying, photographing, videoing and EDITING. When editing you're not just putting a bunch of stuff together you need to tell a story. You need to tease the viewer and leave them wanting to see more. Your goal is to show them enough to make them want to see it in person. If you show them every aspect of the home/property then you didn't leave them wanting/needing to see the listing in person.
Next brush up on your marketing/social skills and don't be afraid to dress up nice for clients. Most Realtors are professionals and they appreciate working with industry professionals so dress and act the part.
Get all of your ducks in a row before approaching the first potential client. We started off with business cards, flyers, banners, and logo'd freebies on our first client meeting. Get LOTS of business cards and don't be afraid to hand them out often. If I meet a prospective client while eating dinner I hand them a card and the back it states something like "$50 off your first listing with ABC Co". This wets their whistle.
Sign up for every "Realtor Event" you can. Support the local Board of Realtors and do things with them. We join them for community events and fund raisers throughout the year. It not only shows we support them but we are also out there in the community trying to give back. The local BOR voted our company "Associate Member of the Year" for 2016 and awarded us a plaque to commemorate it. Guess who the Big Dog in town is?
Lastly if no other sUAS companies are currently active with the Chamber of Commerce don't be afraid to join them. They are great assets so long as you don't have competition already with them. If so then don't bother because they won't push one or the other.
Jason, don't be fooled. You are not going to get rich shooting Real Estate aerial photography or video. I lived in Denver for 10 years (now Dallas) and drive every year up to to ski with the family. We get off I-25 so that we can see some of these awesome ranches and homestead through Colorado on the want to Summit County. Pricing is all about the market that you are in and the time it takes to do the property justice.
On a big ranch, I would position it as a property tour, which could be much longer and detailed, so that a remote buyer can get a sense for the property before coming in to see it. These jobs are going to be harder to get (especially without a great portfolio) and they will be few. That could be a $1,000 project.
In our market outside of Dallas (Rockwall / Heath area) the housing market is a seller's market and the need for aerials is just not really there. BUT the realtor's need for showing value in listing with them is very high. So, I develop the relationship with the Realtor and use my 20 years of marketing experience to provide cost effective ideas for helping them market their listings, behind just MLS.
Big focuses in my market are:
- Homes on 0.75+ acres over $400K
- Cost-effective virtual tours using interior shots
- Branded social videos for listing marketing on Social Media and Emails
- Land / Property & Lots for Sale - to show boundaries and relationship to neighborhood
- New Developments and Construction Marketing
Standard Pricing:
- $150 for Aerial Photos (based off of Shoot2Sell's pricing)
- $200 for Aerial Photos and Video together (I won't let "just video" leave my hands, so I put more time into it)
- $250-$300 for a branded and high-production video to be used on Social and YouTube
- $50-65 Aerial Photos for first-time customer / $75-$100 for "good" customers
- Add $50-75 for a branded video for use on social media OR virtual tour using existing interiors
- Add $100 for interiors on a home <4,000 SF
MY ADVICE...
Bring more to the table than just a drone and a mac book!
Market yourself before you can claim to market others!
I am listing out my marketing below...
You need to develop some proficiency in understanding how to develop a video that tells a story. Develop your skills in editing and production. Learn how to use Photoshop and push your basic editing tools like iMovie to the max before getting wrapped up in the complex and expensive tools like Final Cut and Premiere.
Be a marketing resource to your Realtors
I even assist in the management of some of their Facebook pages to help drive the demand that my video should be bringing.
Get to know best practices
Know what others are doing that you are not. Understand how to communicate that to your clients.
Expand into other commercial area of drone-based services like Mapping & Surveys: Aerial Mapping & Surveys - Get a New Perspective Using Drones to Map Your Property or Project - dpwarren Aerial Photography
Lastly, here are some examples of what I am talking about:
- Latest Video Demo Reel - 6 hours in development
- Full Marketing Video for 34 acre property with virtual tour (I also shot the interior - $225 for first-time customer) - 1 hrs round trip / 3 hrs on-location / 1.5 hrs post - will only use me now
- Virtual Tour of a $949 K home (existing interiors, but my aerial video - $100 for first time customer) - 45 min on-location, close to my home & 2 hrs post - got me on Keller Williams preferred vendor list
- New Community Development marketing video (freebie for the owner of a large independent real estate agency) - 1 hr on-location / 2.5 hrs post - access to all 40 agents now
- 20 Acre Land Listing (only a $100K listing, so I did it for $50) - will only use me now
- Construction Site Survey for new elementary school (freebie) - 30 min on-location / 1.5 post - was played at the School Board meeting and sent out in School District-wide email newsletter
- Website: Real Estate & Construction Aerial Photography, Video, Survey & Mapping - dpwarren Aerial Photography
- Facebook: 需要安全验证
- Instagram: dpwarren Aerial Photography (@dpwarren.aerial) • Instagram photos and videos
- Twitter: dpwarren photography (@dpwarren_aerial) | Twitter
- YouTube: dpwarren Aerial Photography
David Warren
Here is the best advice you will get. Don't market directly to realtors. Get meetings with all the real estate photographers in your area and subcontract as their drone service. They already have the clientele and are trusted. Most real estate photographers don't want to deal with drones (Yet). I charge $200 for photographs and $550 for an edited video project.
I used to work directly with realtors and they are not the easiest to work with. I would work a couple jobs a month when marketing directly to realtors and now I work 4-5 jobs a week since I've been collaborating with local photographers.
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