Real Estate Photography

RedWylder

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My husband and I, in our recent home buying experience, discovered that in our area real estate photos are at a minimum. Trying to look at houses online was awful since so many of the houses had very few/poor photos included in the listing. We are interested in starting a side business in providing photos for local Realtors. However our knowledge of shooting interior spaces is minimum. We could really use any tips that ya'll have. One of my major concerns is lighting, so anything on that would be helpful.
 
Before you get too far into this, I would suggest doing some research with local agents and listing services to find out whether there's a market for this in your area. These days, most agents carry a cheap P&S in their pocket for routine listings, and they're more concerned with saving money rather than getting high-quality photos.

That said, shooting interior spaces, especially residental size rooms will require multiple lights (typically speedlights are sufficient), and wide to UWA lenses. As well, look into panorama bases.
 
I don't know how it is there. Have you talked to the companies about this? In my area the only houses that get more than a front photo are in the 300,000 up range because it's not worth the time based on the commission they are getting. I actually do social media for a re company and have to fight to be allowed to take more than one photo of the houses I am posting. Most of the country isn't buying right now either. Hopefully you are in a great market area where people are buying and re companies are still banking big bucks and it works out. Just a thought before spending money on equipment.
 
I wastyping at the same time almost the same thing lol
 
This question comes up every so often. The usual consensus is that most real estate companies/agents won't spend much (or anything) for better photos. The terrible photos that you see are typically viewed as 'good enough'.

I'm sure there is a market for real estate photography, but as mentioned, it's probably in the high end of the real estate market and requires high end photography (lighting) skills. And even so, the gigs like that are probably few and far between, unless you are working in Southern California etc.
 
I know that the pictures are really tiny on the MLS site here. I think they do that though so you will go and look at the house. I don't think they will want high quality photos to list just because if you can see them on line what are the chances you will go to view it in person? Yes if you like the pictures you would go for a viewing but large, quality photos will also show off all of the poor points of the home as well.

I thought about this last year sometime lol.
 
Thanks for the tips guys! I will say I've begun my research and a friend of mine is a real estate agent who actually works with a photographer who does this very thing. Apparently he brackets his prices based on how much the house is selling for. For example: 80-150k is $75 and 200-300k might be $200. I'm still not sure what would be included in each bracket, but from what I understand this guy and his wife live off of the money that they make doing it. I still need to research this in my own area and since I'm only looking for a little money on the side I won't be hurt either way.

Let's assume that this happens to be very profitable in my area and that I have tons of clients. What would higher end clients expect as far as lighting? What is considered good lighting for a room? And vice verse for the lower end? I'm not ok with P&S no matter how low end so where would I cut costs for the cheaper houses?
 
...his prices based on how much the house is selling for. For example: 80-150k is $75 and 200-300k might be $200.
By the time you factor in set-up, editing, etc, that's about five, ten minutes of shooting - not worth your time.

... What would higher end clients expect as far as lighting? What is considered good lighting for a room?
Pick up a copy of "Home & Garden", "House Beautiful", or any one of a dozen other "Home" magazines. The interior photographs in them? That's good lighting.
 
This is interesting, I don't know if anyone ever watches the show "Selling NY", but those brokers throw major advertising campaigns at those properties. Now, before I get hounded on this, I know, a multi-million dollar NY appartment is different than a $150,000 property wherever it is. The premiss behind it should apply anywhere though, good pictures should get more people interested in seeing the house, if the house is worth seeing. I don't get why agents in any market just accept that crappy pictures are "good enough". So many people do house shopping on the internet now, you would think that good pictures of a property would spur interest. It's been said already, but I would talk to local agents and try to explain to them the advantages. Good luck.
 
I too have been very interested in this. In browsing the MLS website as well as other Real Estate pages it really looks like some of these agents are taking pictures with their smart phones and uploading them like that. I went to look at a couple of houses that the pictures interested me and found the homes to be MUCH better looking in person. It is sad when people the world over are looking at spending money instead of investing money.

I am betting that if we could hook up with a realtor and take some "better" photos of their listings for a year they would come to see that they would sell more homes faster than with their "good enough" cell phone pictures. In the end the money they invested in photography would easily be made up in more sales faster.

I would even venture that setting up a hosting site and hosting fast loading, large, well lit photos of the properties would be a good thing to do as well. Sometimes the realtor pages load very slow for people with slower internet, like I have in my work truck, a MiFi from Verizon.
 
Regardless if your target wants to save money (realtors in this case), If you are good at sales I bet you can get some jobs. Just like Behanana pointed out about higher end real esate companies, you have to convince them that hiring you will help them sell that house quicky and for a good price. It's all about the ABC, A. Always. B. Be. C. Closing!

‪Alec Baldwin - Best performance‬‏ - YouTube





COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS!
 
Hi,

New to this forum. What Nikon FX lens would you recommend for shooting Real Estate shots?
 
In my area, all real estate agents take the pictures with either their phone or a cheap point and shoot. They take these photos themselves and would probably never pay anyone to do it.
 
I thought about getting into this as well, I found this group to be a fantastic resource: Flickr: Photography for Real Estate

If you look at the houses in that group, they are fairly expensive. In my research I found the big difference is that in the 0-300k range, the photography isn't that great. Once you start going up the price range of the property, especially a over 500k, the effort and result is great (see examples in link above).
 

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