Real Estate Photographer

[tecboy]

What do you think of this letter? They are willing to offer me a job, but I have to pay certain amount of money and supply my own gear.

 

[waday]

It's usually not good sign when you have to pay to get a job. The job should be paying you, not the other way around...

 

[KmH]

They are not offering a job.
You would be a self-employed, independent contractor limited to a contracted service area.

As an independent contractor, you may be required by the City of San Jose to register your business. Check with the City Clerk's office.
Being self-employed the State of California may require you to pay unemployment insurance taxes on your income. Check with the State.

They provide leads and marketing materials.
They expect you to do the marketing and to expand your business.

Their letter says nothing about copyright, property releases.

It could be a good deal for a photographer that is a self starter that understands how to get maximum effect from the marketing materials they provide.
Considerable time has to be devoted to marketing and promotion to expand a business. At least you would not have to generate your own marketing materials.
I wonder.
How much do they charge for marketing materials once you have exhausted the materials included with the $150.00 training, rotator/pano head fee?

 

[pixmedic]

I would stay away from any "job" that requires you to pay them before they will "hire" you.
your actually a contractor, not an employee.
I would imagine that at some point after your initial $150 investment, you will be required to send them more money for whatever "materials" you need.
it says they have materials to assist you in marketing, (which i assume you have to buy from them) meaning you have to do your own footwork and get your own clients...for this company.
if your a good salesman, and a good (and fast) real estate photographer, you could potentially make some decent money if you are able to line up a lot of shoots every month.
I too am curious how much their marketing material costs.

 

[jsecordphoto]

Sounds like somebody is trying to make their money selling shovels during the gold rush

 

[vintagesnaps]

It's not well written; not the worst I've seen but if I find myself making corrections as I read that tells me it wasn't professionally done.

Sounds like they want you to pay them for leads and equipment and then you're probably on your own. I don't know what the real estate photography business is like in your area, or how many photographers are already working with realtors, but you may just keep finding dead ends and none of their leads may get you any work.

 

[tirediron]

"You will be compensated at least $60"... take off travel time, fuel, etc, and there's not much left of $60 to go in your pocket. Done properly (which, judging by the samples on the company's website isn't a high priority), a large home can easily take three hours to shoot... that would mean you might be putting $10-15/hour in your pocket. I think not.

 

[waday]

I too am curious how much their marketing material costs.

This is what they're charging their clients.

Real Estate Printing | Signs | CD's | DVD's | QR Code Labels

Seems kinda pricey...
$49.99 for 50 flyers
$64.99 for 100 flyers

I don't know about anyone else, but when I went house hunting last year, the wife and I picked up many flyers. Not one looked like it was worth $1. Most of them were actually pretty cheaply made--probably in MS Word, then they were photocopied probably a few hundred times.

Who knows, maybe we should have been looking at multi million dollar mansions for better brochures?

 

[Derrel]

This is an exploitative business scheme. It does not quite rise to the level of a scam. I would neatly fold the paper and then while holding the folded sheet of paper in your left hand between thumb and forefinger, set it on fire, and imagine the flames of the paper represent the $20 bills in your wallet, you know, once you start working "with" that outfit. Hold onto the burning paper until the very last, last end-most piece of it burns.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Did a search, had to go to page 5 of searches to start finding much info. other than what CirclePix promotes themselves. Found a so-called training video, seemed pretty basic. And they want realtors (I guess?) to pay $99 for a virtual tour? not sure what that was.

Found one that the realtor is the CirclePix photographer (does it himself). Another message board where a realtor said they had used CirclePix but switched to another company for better customer support. Found reviews by employees; said it was 'fun' but - pay low, benefits poor, photographers have to do cold calls and promote themselves; one said fun but low pay per job when including travel time etc. and may be busy one week and no jobs the next.

Some people are good at putting themselves all over the place online; doesn't mean it's any good, just that's it's promoted a lot.


Probably a good thing you came on here and asked for some opinions.

 

[astroNikon]

Be Careful .. they make you buy their equipment (panoramic head).

==> Anyone ever heard of CirclePix?: Open Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

==> Has anyone heard of CirclePix? -- The Business of Photography in photography-on-the.net forums

==> Real estate photography & Circlepix.com | Photography Forum

==> Circlepix - Springville, UT

 

[Shutterspeed83]

good profit for them xD

 

[imagemaker46]

I'd toss this one into the basket marked no F**king way. They want you to pay for everything so that they can make money off how eager you are to run around pushing photos to other realtors. It's a pretty good scheme they have going, search out suckers and make money off them.

Walk away from this one.

 

[gsgary]

Are people that desperate for jobs over there ?

 

[Designer]

Are people that desperate for jobs over there ?

I don't think that's it, exactly. Sometimes we wish for a job doing what we would be doing anyway.

If someone doesn't mind clerking in retail, those jobs are all over town. I can't drive down the street or walk into a store without seeing "Help wanted" signs. But that's not exactly what people are looking for.