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Drones in Real Estate: Pricing and Contracts

Marlene Lebel said:
How does anyone charge for drone photography and videography services in real estate? Does anyone have a pricing menu sample? Also, how about contracts for these services - anyone with samples? OMG, I plastered LinkedIn offering these services before I thought about how I should charge and I'm getting inquiries. HELP!
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Be aware a lot of folks in forums are going to tell you they charge ridiculously high fees, just to make themselves look good, or "successful."
Don't fall for that. The market in your area will set your fees, not the other way around. You cannot expect to charge the same in Beverly Hills, CA as Albuquerque, NM.

Surely, you want to do a cost analysis before setting a fee schedule. Real estate agents and brokers are notoriously cheap and will try to low ball you, if you can get them to pay the bill at all! Many just get their friend with a drone take the pics illegally.

Best bet is a contract with a large agency. I busted my behind trying to make a profit with real estate, then I sort of "fell" into construction. Now my bread and butter is construction.
 
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LUIS MARTINEZ said:
Be aware a lot of folks in forums are going to tell you they charge ridiculously high fees, just to make themselves look good, or "successful."
Don't fall for that. The market in your area will set your fees, not the other way around. You cannot expect to charge the same in Beverly Hills, CA as Albuquerque, NM.

Surely, you want to do a cost analysis before setting a fee schedule. Real estate agents and brokers are notoriously cheap and will try to low ball you, if you can get them to pay the bill at all! Many just get their friend with a drone take the pics illegally.
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Well, I guess it depends on what kind of service you offer. If go to a property, fly your drone for 5 minutes, edit it in 15 minutes and send the video to a client, I assume someone can do that for $300.

If you want to create a one of a kind video, you have to study the property to make it look at its best, get the right sequences, repeat them if needed, find the right music track (then buy it), edit the video, do some colour correction, publish them to YouTube-Facebook... I don’t see how someone can make more than the minimum wage if they charge $300.

As Luis Martinez said, there’s obviously a large variation based on your market. That has to be checked beforehand. However, some agents are willing to pay for a higher quality product if you can provide that, especially if it’s original and unlike "all the other drone real estate videos out there".

There’s also the selling part; you have to sell your services to your potential clients. Again, if you offer the same services as the last 5 drone operators who approached the agent, you’ll have a hard time making it. We got our first paying client by first asking the agent what was the feature he wanted to highlight (long driveway, double gate). We came up with the "car driving" concept and were able to sell it to the agent. Here’s the published video. We’ve gotten better since, but that video helped sell this property (around $4 million).

Also, you don’t sell your services by sending a mass email to all the realtors in your region; call them, talk to them, show up at their office... Sell.

I wouldn’t target "second tier" agents. As was also pointed out, those agents are more likely to "hire a friend" or just do it themselves (without a permit). Aim for the top tier; the ones who don’t have time to mess with videos because they’re too busy driving their Maserati.

This also goes without saying, but you need to present yourself - your company professionally to be taken seriously. You need a good website (not just a Facebook page), and at least one great demo video. Here’s our first demo.

With all this being told, people shouldn’t expect to quit their day job to start selling videos for real estate. For us though, it pays a few bills and we’re having a blast doing it. I just wouldn't bother doing it for less than $800; certainly not for $300.
 
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Outta Control said:
So for conversation sake.

How much would you pay this operator for a complete package.

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That caliber of video is going to bring a LOT. I've got to admit that's one of, if not THE best Real Estate video I've seen. That is what I would call the "Platinum Standard" of RE videos.

Not to mention I want that house LOL.
 
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This video I think is in another category, it can't be cheap at all. Maybe we're making the mistake by putting all the videos at the same height. As this is not the case, prices cannot be compared either.
 
ok; this is a great video. Thanks for sharing!

I would say it was probably priced between $2-5k.

The guy is located in California. Want competition for drone videos? Go to California. - That would decrease the price, BUT:

He did interior-exterior, all this with high quality hardware.

There’s some overlay work. This can’t be done with cheap software (and requires knowledge and skills).

I believe the voiceover was done professionally. Another $. (The challenge with having voice over in a real estate video is if you share it on Facebook, the audio is automatically turned off unless the viewer taps on the video -- but that's not the question here ;-) )

I can’t say how far they had to travel to get to the location.
 
Yes Drone Cowboys is located in Grass Valley CA. When I started flying multicopter, I thought to get into cinematography. Then I realize I don't have the creative juice unlike my buddies, so I focused on industrial use. :)

One thing about the voiceover they use is that they get "him" for a very good price, as I was told.
 
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Outta Control said:
Yes Drone Cowboys is located in Grass Valley CA. When I started flying multicopter, I thought to get into cinematography. Then I realize I don't have the creative juice unlike my buddies, so I focused on industrial use. :)

One thing about the voiceover they use is that they get "him" for a very good price, as I was told.
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So that means you know how much someone paid for that video? Don't leave us hanging! ;)
 
SellingTheAcres said:
So that means you know how much someone paid for that video? Don't leave us hanging! ;)
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Oh sorry. Didn't know y'all wanted the pricing. As I was told the price range from $4500 to $6000 and they do at least 2-3 a month. Plus, weekend time to teach at DUU.
 
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They're like the Roll-Royce of this kind of commercial. I like them a lot at least :)
 
I realize this differs from person to person, and most people don't have a problem with editing, but my problem is the cost of editing software. Anyway how much would you charge for:
  • Unedited aerial photos
  • Unedited aerial videos
  • Unedited inside photos
 
Firedrone said:
I realize this differs from person to person, and most people don't have a problem with editing, but my problem is the cost of editing software. Anyway how much would you charge for:
  • Unedited aerial photos
  • Unedited aerial videos
  • Unedited inside photos
Click to expand...

Just a suggestion. If want a powerful editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro without spend money, you should take it a look at

DaVinci Resolve 15 | Blackmagic Design

I believe Drone Cowboys use both PP and Davinci Resolve.
 
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So, I am not familiar with Davinci Resolve. I have been using Filmora. I downloaded it...yeah, waaaay over my head lol. That's ok, my interest is piqued and when I feel dumb with a program I feel compelled to learn it. I'll get back to y'all once I've mastered it. See ya in like 35 yrs. or so.:p
 
Outta Control said:
Just a suggestion. If want a powerful editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro without spend money, you should take it a look at

DaVinci Resolve 15 | Blackmagic Design

I believe Drone Cowboys use both PP and Davinci Resolve.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the tip on DaVinci Program, I downloaded the Beta Public version however it seems to require their control panels which is connected to computer in order to run the program. See attached image. So back to Filmora basic editing. :(

Filmora is a very easy amatuer tool hence the price. I would have like to try the DaVinci program though. :/
 

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