Going pro - the sequel

[skieur]

Easy, it reduces the number of "potential buys", if you see something that you definitely do NOT like in the great photography or virtual tours.

skieur

I spent a lot of time looking for houses in San Francisco and I began to distrust the brochures because great pictures were made but the house didn't live up to the pictures hype.
Perhaps they facilitate the first look but I began to steer away from the hype and look for the not-so-well photographed houses that actually showed me what I's see when I got there.

True enough; ultra-wide angle shots commonly featured - the rooms look far bigger than the reality. That starts to get a bit irritating.

Yes, most of the photography is done with 10mm to 20mm wide angle zooms, but having bought a home recently, I just looked at them from that point of view. The wide angle lenses were used for increased depth of field under regular light and care was taken with camera angles to avoid unrealistic distortion of size. Having talked to a photographer for a particular real estate company, he pointed out that little or no postprocessing was done because of time constraints.

skieur

 

[The_Traveler]

yes, but that isn't the point.

If excellent - and costly -photography isn't a distinct advantage, the the realtor who has a big inventory won't put a lot of dough into it.
Well staged homes are probably better deal closers than photos that mislead by their excellence.

 

[unpopular]

I do think you're right. Advertising a house isn't like advertising burgers. We're all a little disappointed by McDonalds, but we are full and emotionally satisfied. And we've only spent a few bucks.

You don't want to create an advertisement that inevitably results in disappointment, distrust and skepticism. People always "try before they buy" a house, they walk through the home and if the relationship they have with it is not maintained from what they saw in previous advertising, they're going to walk away from the property feeling negatively. They might not even realize that it's the ad, not the property that is making them feel that way, and this in particular is a very dangerous thing.

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The way I see it is that I could provide run-of-the-mill advertising media for many properties using wide angle lenses, minimal post processing, low cost materials - but at some point a realtor is going to need to ask themselves if it's worth it, or if this is just something they can do themselves. Convenience is one selling point, but i don't think I can sell my services in convenience alone. Plus, like I said before, any moron with a camera thinks they can do this kind of work.

I could focus on a few high end properties, but to do so I'd have to cover a much larger area, and this could cut into my bottom line significantly. Higher end properties though would likely benefit more from the full range of services which I'd offer.

In reality, I would need to also address other markets that would require high-quality architectural and technical photography and multimedia services, such as architectural and industrial firms, while focussing on real-estate as my regular, stable work.