Real Estate photography pricing?

davidquillin · Jul 17, 2008

Can anyone give me some kind of idea of what folks are charging to do real estate photography? I asked locally and was told "photographers are only getting mileage"...whatever that means. Anyway, thoughts/comments? Thanks

reg · Jul 17, 2008

You're not going to get much for it in most markets - "only getting mileage" would be gas costs. In other words, doing it for free.

In the current area I'm in (Mobile, Alabama - I have a couple friends who are Realtors) most of the agents are taking their own pics or getting a friend with a camera to do them. However, out in Los Angeles, where I used to live and still have a lifelong friend who is a Realtor, people are still getting paid hundreds/low thousands of dollars for real estate photos, but again this market is still going strong selling multi-million dollar homes.

Here in Mobile, the most expensive homes are about $500,000 and even those are few and far between because all the new development is low income and you don't see expensive homes for sale often. One of the friends sold apx. 1.2M worth of property last year, and only got like 50 grand of it. The agents are responsible for photos, so that would take like half of her yearly income away if she was to pay someone. But in LA, where the other friend is selling 10M a year and LIVING in one of those homes like she's often selling, she's paying a photographer.

If you're in an area where the market's in a downturn, good luck finding ANYBODY who will pay you. But if you're in a high income, high population, and good market then you can still thrive off the business.

tirediron · Jul 17, 2008

Certainly in my area, all but maybe the top 0.01 % of homes are photographed by the Estate Agent, usually with a P&S. It's not something I've ever done, but if I were to do it, it would be a straight $25/hour + milage charge.

Christie Photo · Jul 18, 2008

tirediron said:
...if I were to do it, it would be a straight $25/hour + milage charge.

And after you pay taxes on that, you end up with about $18/hr. Seems a bit cheap for a photographer, the benefit of his/her experience and equipment. I think one can rent a camera for about $10/hr, leaving a mere $8/hr for your professional skills.

IheartApple · Jun 22, 2009

You just have to be smart and market yourself. I live near portland or and run my own photography/virtual tour business and charge $110 a shoot on average + any additional add-ons. I schedule multiple tours a day and have an efficient work flow so that when i get home its only an additional 1.5 hours of processing and viola.

It's easy to make $2700 up here, even in this market. You just have to know how to market yourself. One thing I do/did is locate all your competitors, see if you can find a page full of their clients, write their information down and call them, undercutting the competition. Once you get their permission, build a database of emails and start monthly email campaigns using something like constant contact. That way you can track the people who even open the email and you can contact them with a follow up call and offer extra incentives to use you (like, say 10% off the first shoot if they decide to use you.)

Goodluck