I would charge $100-200 for some good shots and if you need to travel a bit I would charge a little more. But if you got good shots and it only took a few minutes $100 would be a quick buck
How much to charge for real estate photos?
- Thread starter Jack Mackinnon
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I agree completely!!! If someone posts a question, the priority should be on answering that question - not making a bunch of negative assumptions so that one can judge and lecture - and if you pay attention across multiple threads, you'll start to notice that it's the same members every time that just can't wait to judge and belittle! They rarely provide in any useful advice and almost never answer the original question.
I also disagree with the advice provided by those that tried to help - although I'm glad they tried to answer the OP's question directly.
"Figure out what your costs are and then add enough to make a fair profit" is probably the quickest way to kill the industry completely. Amateur, professional or hobbyist should charge based on the current market prices and the quality of their work as compared to the quality an experienced professional would deliver. If your work is every bit as good as a properly licensed and insured professional - then charge the going rate. The pro's will even thank you for it because you are not destroying the market. A pro has a lot of overheaad they need to recoup. A hobbyist that is doing work without those permits should be equally concerned with costs because they should be building up a financial cushion with with to pay the fines if and when they do get caught and charged!
The unlicensed, amateur that does professional quality work and only charges a fraction of the price is the absolute worst think that can happen to the drone photography industry. He is taking business away from a licensed commercial operator and is destroying the "going rate".... so all the advice in this thread about figuring out what your costs are and what your time is worth and then adding them together - although well intentioned - is going to destroy the industry).
So - to repeat myself - and to provide an answer to the OP's original question - if your work is every bit as good as a professionals work, then go ahead and charge the same price the pro would have charged. If you're still practicing and your output quality is noticeably less than a professionals - then discount your work for that reason and make sure your customer knows what the going rate should be and why you're offering a discount'.
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I posted in another thread, but seeing these $100-$200 numbers floating around are laughable. Maybe for dropping 5 min of raw footage into Dropbox and letting them have it, but for any graded/edited media, (especially video), people are nuts. Between portal to portal travel, shooting, grading, editing and rendering, you're talking hours of time. If you're ok with $20-$30/hour then great, go for it. For the OP, that could be very nice at that age, for photos only.
For 5 photos I would charge no less than $125 in my area. I'm in a lower cost area. Takes me 15 minutes or less to produce that many.
Few folks with drones will be successful in making a decent amount of money from real estate photos and short videos. Sure some folks will do it as a sideline to earn extra money, a small number of people will be able to earn a decent living from this market, and a very few number will be wildly successful. The barrier to entry for this market is too low: obtain a part 107 license, buy a phantom 4 drone that takes acceptable pictures, a bit of post processing, enough training to take a decent pic, and online distribution. For less than $5,000 and within 3 months anyone can call themselves a drone photographer and go into business.
A sure sign of oversaturation of a market is when people exhort newcomers not to give their services away. I saw this happen when digital cameras hit a low enough price point that lots of would be professional photographers rushed to get into wedding and portrait photography and there were plenty of craigslist ads with people willing to shot a wedding for $100 or less.
Remember that a drone is simply a digital camera that can fly. No special knowledge is needed to take basic real estate photos and videos.
A sure sign of oversaturation of a market is when people exhort newcomers not to give their services away. I saw this happen when digital cameras hit a low enough price point that lots of would be professional photographers rushed to get into wedding and portrait photography and there were plenty of craigslist ads with people willing to shot a wedding for $100 or less.
Remember that a drone is simply a digital camera that can fly. No special knowledge is needed to take basic real estate photos and videos.
You will be in demand if you can offer killer interior/exterior photos along with killer aerial shots. It's rare to see both. There's more to is than just throwing a drone up in the air and snapping photos. Same goes for general real estate photography. It's all about good compositions. If you don't have an eye for photography the chances of you surviving in this business are slim to none unless you are very cheap and very fast. It's not about capital investment itself. It's about the content that you create with that investment. What I would consider my average RE photo is better than a lot of run n gun photographers best work for RE.
DJI, as well as other drone makers, have added a number of features to make it easy to take acceptable photos and videos for basic real estate needs. The learning curve to fly a drone, complete an orbit, and/or setting a point a view is quite small. I believe that fairly quickly real estate agents will obtain part 107 licenses and provide basic drone pics and video in house. The motivation to do so will be to keep more of their commission.
There will always be a need for highly skilled drone pilots/photographers for high end properties and other specialty needs. However this market will be relatively small. The people that succeed in this category will have extremely good photography and video skills to get the proper shots knowing how to use properly use light and composition rather than relying on great drone piloting skills.
There will always be a need for highly skilled drone pilots/photographers for high end properties and other specialty needs. However this market will be relatively small. The people that succeed in this category will have extremely good photography and video skills to get the proper shots knowing how to use properly use light and composition rather than relying on great drone piloting skills.
It all comes down to time. Realtors aren't getting paid to take photos or video of a home. They are getting commission to market and sell the home. It's not in their best interest to spend and hour or two trying to photograph a home and on top of that another 30mins to an hour editing photos for that home. Their time is best signing listing agreements and show potential buyers homes. All of the successful agents I have seen either hire a photographer or have an in house secretary that take photos. Even at that the in house photography is kind of the same thing as them doing it themselves. The quality suffers because it comes back down to time and efficiency. The in house photographer is doing other things besides the photography.
You may be right for the short term for a few realtors. However, one mistake can be quite costly in terms of repairs. Realtors that buy a drone and try to use it like a stapler or a photocopier are not going to have a drone for long. Poor battery maintenance, or understanding what to do if something goes wrong, frequent firmware updates, compass recalibrations and preflight checklists will be an annoyance - and a likely point where shortcuts are taken and a source of things going wrong. They are something that most realtors will not be willing to put up with for long.
Yes drones are relatively cheap now - and there is some great automation built-in - but they are still a long way from being a turn-key solution that a non-hobbyist, non-professional can own and operate for the long term.
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Hi Jack...I photograph real estate and when I do Drone coverage I charge $270 and the realtors pay it. It usually take me about 20 minutes. No need for any more time.
