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R.Perry

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I keep saying I'm not doing any more real estate stoots, then one of the realtors I know calls and ask for some photos or videos.

The realtor I did a shoot for yesterday didn't quibble about the price until I finished. Her comment was it only took you a few minutes to shoot that video, why so expensive? It took m 35 minutes to get to the home, less than twenty minutes to do the aerial, and forty minutes to do the photos.
20 minutes listening to her babble, and a thirty minute drive home.
One and half hours of editing and HDR work.
My fee was $350.00 and the results were very good in my un-humble opinion.

The home is on the market for 925k, I asked her what her commission was? Sure I knew, but I was trying to stress a point.

Total commission is $55,000, now since she is the broker if she sells the home she gets the entire amount, otherwise she splits it with the selling real estate agency. If another of her agents sells the home they get about 8k, so the minimum she will make is 19,000 plus, and she was complaining about 350.00

Love photography and doing the videos, but I'm sick of cheap realtors wanting something for nothing. If they have a low end property they don't even ask for high end photography or aerial and I understand that. Low end in our area is 300lk so even at that they could easily afford quality photography but most won't.
 
You can thank all the "Joe Blows" out there that charge 50/75 bucks for a real-estate shoots with their toy drones. That's why I got out of that line of work. Very happy doing power line and tower inspections and there is no quibbling about the price. :D
 
Perry, Grumpy has nailed it. A few forces at work here...First it’s the proliferation of the technology. I was talking with a “heavy hitter” realtor last night and she was telling me that she used to pay $800 for a Matterport tour, now they are all over the city and the price is $300 for the same square footage.
Second is the supply and demand linked to the hacks out there with no 107, insurance that are happy to make $100 to put together a crappy video with tilted horizons and jumpy moves...because to the realtors, sometimes “good enough” is all they are looking for, especially when it’s coming out of their own pockets for marketing.
My suggestion is to try and reach out to the commercial realtors in your area. In my experience, the properties are larger (with bigger budgets) and you can add more value to your work with videos and even mapping.
Or, play their game and hire a pilot (who actually has a 107/Liability Ins) Who’s happy to go make that $100 and you make $50-$100 for the lead, post production and delivery.
Trying to change this trend with residential real estate is like trying push back the waves on the shore, but if you change your model and figure out a way to embrace it..you’ll have your own mini DroneBase.
...hopefully you can still sleep at night. ;)
 
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It's all about how you market yourself and your services. 10% of the Remote Pilots make 90% of the money. There's a reason for that. (And it isn't because they are necessarily the best. It's because they work harder to deliver compelling stories explaining why clients should choose them.)
 
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Don't forget to add the cost of business so that you can do it legally: The Part107 Pilot Certificate didn't come free, and I am sure you are insured.

When you go to your doctor's office, he or she will see you for fifteen minutes max, yet you get a bill for a few hundred dollars. Same logic, there are costs to be a business.
 
First this is nothing new. When I started in TV 20 years ago we used a Sony BetaSP Camera it was a $50,000 broadcast Camera. We edited on two $25,000 Beta Decks. You had to use these cameras to meet technical broadcast standards.
I did TV commercials and Music Videos. If I got hired just to film my day rate was $3000 per day in 1999. To edit if I was just hired for that I’d get $350 an hour. Then in 2002 the digital aged kicked in and Canon and Sony came out with a digital camera that cost $5000. And met those tech broadcast standards everyone bought one and everyone was a producer and rates caved to $250 a day to shoot and $50 to edit. So I rebooted my company to provide services to build websites. Apps. Social sites editing shooting etc. long long boring story. I know. Anyway along came the drone. So I’m one of the first DJI Pilots. Back before 333, 336, 107 like 5 years ago I was taking real estate pics with a go pro Velcroed to the Phantom before Cameras gimbals gps. The beta version. I was getting $1000 a house. Finally the end of this story. I didn’t charge them cash up front. The poster here figured out in his head what the realtor is going to make. Not what they have made. So I don’t charge up front I charge at closing. Get a contract to be part of the closing costs. The realtor loves that it passes your fees on to the seller for them. I keep my rate at $500 for 12 photos, one pano and one orbit. I’m on site for 1 hour from set up to tear down. I guess I could have lead with the ending but it’s Saturday and it’s hot as hell out a great time to read my long post I just did on my phone at Starbucks
 
Many good points here, and yes I'm insured, and have my 107, most of my work is construction documentation, and I do get paid well for that.
I'm basically an old retired pud knocker (pilot) that loves photography and anything that flies. Had a construction and real-estate inspection business and began using the drone a few years ago to do roof inspections and that led into doing other photography work.
I know the market is dependent on the area, where I live it isn't that lucrative compared to the SF bay area, LA, Sacramento and the major cities. Most of my work is in Class G air space so I don't need to deal with the FAA very often and that suits me fine.

For the younger people coming into this field I think they are going to see some big changes in the future and hopefully it will bring a little more professionalism to the industry.
 
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Many great thoughts here. I usually fly for Dronebase ...it pays the bills. I have finally got in with a group of realtors in the DFW area. I charge .001 of the listing price for exterior shots and an additional .0005 for interior. On a 300k home that works out to $300 for the aerial and $150 more for the interior. I normally provide between 10-20 drone stills and a video (Videos usually start on homes over $500K) if they request. On the inside I shoot a normal layout to include all of the rooms and the key features. This rate is based on all of the shots being taken on the same visit. So far so good. Does this seem reasonable?
 
Hey there Yykg0b. You know, with about 3-5 minutes of effort you could list yourself in DronePilotsCentral. It's completely free. And if it gets you just one paying job in a year, think of that awesome return rate!! You won't have to share any of the proceeds with Dronebase - you keep it all.
 
Many great thoughts here. I usually fly for Dronebase ...it pays the bills. I have finally got in with a group of realtors in the DFW area. I charge .001 of the listing price for exterior shots and an additional .0005 for interior. On a 300k home that works out to $300 for the aerial and $150 more for the interior. I normally provide between 10-20 drone stills and a video (Videos usually start on homes over $500K) if they request. On the inside I shoot a normal layout to include all of the rooms and the key features. This rate is based on all of the shots being taken on the same visit. So far so good. Does this seem reasonable?

That is interesting, I would be charging more for the interiors. I have found that doing the interior takes me a lot more time both in the shoot and the processing.
 
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I've read many different opinions form many sources, about providing services to people in competing real estate verticals. Then there's the work of discovering what is actually happening within, say, 20-50 miles of where you live, for the higher volume real estate deals (not the high-end properties). According to some sources, the entire real estate industry is rapidly moving away from relying only on still images, no matter how attractive, and towards relying on a smooth blend of interior video clips, a few aerial clips, an unobtrusive and unobjectionable soundtrack, and possibly a few explanatory text overlays. For any property at any price. I don't see the aerial shots as the biggest challenge to staying in business. It's the continual marketing effort, and the work to develop efficient interior video workflows (on-site and especially in post) that produce media of sufficient visual storytelling quality, at job prices that local agents/brokers claim they can afford to pay. I am already seeing the negative impact of a growing horde of drone-in-a-box hopefuls, taking the aerial jobs for low prices then fading away. I find that capturing eye-level video clips is more time-consuming than aerials, even more so for larger homes. However the real time-consumer is post-processing for even visual quality, since interior lighting can be awful, changing dramatically while moving through the rooms, hallways and stairways of a home. On top of that, there's only so much that the videographer can do when the home and surrounding landscaping is not well maintained or staged. On a more positive note, I am intrigued by the innovative concept (credit: skiptv above in this thread) of creating a contract that (1) avoids the agent/broker paying for media when delivered, and (2) shifts that advertising cost to the sellers. Not sure if that concept will be accepted in all markets, or by management in all real estate verticals, but it's worth exploring. Otherwise, if the trend toward time-intensive media continues, a growing number of real estate professionals will be paying more out of pocket to keep working, and/or they will be looking at other service providers to drop their prices while still delivering high-quality products.
 
Good topic here. I think the secret here is to work with a realtor that appreciates the value of good marketing and the differentiation by doing good quality photography work. When I get a new customer, I study his/her previous listings. If they are mostly 200K-300K properties, and they have ugly photos ( yellowish, clogged, iPhone taken), they will fight for the price, and they will hire you only once, and they will demand a quality and detail they never have had. When I am hired by a REA who has 500K and above listings, and nice pictures in their listings, then, they will hire me back again and I try to do the best service I can in order to keep them.
 
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I keep saying I'm not doing any more real estate stoots, then one of the realtors I know calls and ask for some photos or videos.

The realtor I did a shoot for yesterday didn't quibble about the price until I finished. Her comment was it only took you a few minutes to shoot that video, why so expensive? It took m 35 minutes to get to the home, less than twenty minutes to do the aerial, and forty minutes to do the photos.
20 minutes listening to her babble, and a thirty minute drive home.
One and half hours of editing and HDR work.
My fee was $350.00 and the results were very good in my un-humble opinion.

The home is on the market for 925k, I asked her what her commission was? Sure I knew, but I was trying to stress a point.

Total commission is $55,000, now since she is the broker if she sells the home she gets the entire amount, otherwise she splits it with the selling real estate agency. If another of her agents sells the home they get about 8k, so the minimum she will make is 19,000 plus, and she was complaining about 350.00

Love photography and doing the videos, but I'm sick of cheap realtors wanting something for nothing. If they have a low end property they don't even ask for high end photography or aerial and I understand that. Low end in our area is 300lk so even at that they could easily afford quality photography but most won't.


What video editing software are you using? Adobe Premiere? I LOVE how simple AVS is, but it crashes like a drunk on a mini bike
 
I have an older version of Premiere, but just can't go with the yearly fees now. I went to Corel Video Studio and it does the what I need just fine. I also went with Corel Paintshop, it does HDR just fine. Since I have gotten into construction documentation I do very little editing since I'm taking 250 to 1000 photos a day, little to much to spend time attempting to edit, just get it right the first time.
 
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Since I have gotten into construction documentation I do very little editing since I'm taking 250 to 1000 photos a day, little to much to spend time attempting to edit, just get it right the first time.

One of the best part of Const Documenting is not slaving away editing till the wee hours in the morning LOL.
 
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