Is shooting houses for realtors worth it?

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

06/15/2006 01:15:47 AM · #1

Hey there,
I got approached by a realtor to shoot some houses he is selling. I thought I saw a thread about this a long time ago, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, of you that have tried it, is it worth it and how much do you charge or get paid? Is it per property?

I know this is pretty boring photography, but the fact that you get paid for it is exciting to me. I figure a few extra bucks might come in handy to feed my crack..er photography habit.

Let me know what you real estate photographer veterans think.

Thanks for the help.

Cheers,
-jeremy

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

06/15/2006 01:57:58 AM · #2

Depends on how you define "worth it"... It's a matter of what they'll pay and what you think your time is worth. I'm a retired architectural photographer, but I was in the high end of the business, expensive stuff for architects and developers and ad agencies and such. We occasionally shot luxury properties for glossy real estate magazines, "Real Estate photographers" run around with a small camera (like 35mm in my day, digital now) taking a lot of pictures on the fly. They typically get paid by the view, and they're typically told what views to shoot. This sort of work is not very emotionally or artistically satisfying, and it doesn't pay especially well.

Or at least it didn't used to, and I can't imagine it's gotten any better in the digital age.

If I was gonna do it, I'd try to sell myself to "better" realtors as a "better" alternative, produce a product a little more evolved than that of most practitioners, and I'd charge a little more for it. I'd arrange furniture, set tables, stuff like that. I'd make a point of getting good light on the house, making it look inviting and all. Then I'd work out a system for doing this efficiently and see how it went.

You should ask realtors in your area what they pay for this stuff. Most of themdo their own snapshots now anyway, I think...

R.

TechnoShroom

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

06/15/2006 02:28:22 AM · #3

If you're going to be photographing "typical" homes then you're looking at ~$20 a home in this area. They'll want five or six good photos of different aspects of the home and yard for that $20. You supply your own equipment, transportation, arrange when you'll be there with the current owner, prep the home (opening window, turning on lights, moving furniture, etc), and you'll provide the realtor with various sizes of the images. You could also make another ~$25 doing 360Â° views of the property. That's at least how it worked a few years ago when I looked into it.

davidcara

06/15/2006 04:35:14 AM · #4

Check out //www.obeo.com. They are the largest virtual tour porvider in the country.

My company processes all of the photography and stiches all of the panos (360 virtual tours) for all of their shoots in Florida. We process between 1000 and 1500 tours a month.

Their basic tour (10 still photos and 4 360 panos) goes for just under $100.00. By the time all filters down to the photographer, the photographer makes about $35.00 per tour.

With the cost of gas today, travel time, and other expenses, I don't understand how they do it. I've seen some photogrophers do as many as 8 shoots in a day, but once again, they can do that because my company takes care of all the post processing, all they have to do is shoot the photos (which are then uploaded to our servers for processing).

Sorry, don't mean to ramble.

If you have any other questions, you can email or PM me. I;ve been involved in this kind of photography for years.

David

Jason_Cross

Nikon D50

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

06/15/2006 08:31:14 AM · #5

You would have to love taking pictures of homes. Then it would be worth it. Or maybe only do the really nice ones and charge more.

LoudDog

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

06/15/2006 11:20:29 AM · #6

With high end homes they expect high end photos and pay more. If you can get in that business it would pay off here and there. For the more typical homes most realitors shoot their own photos with a P&S and so they won't pay much unless you can convinve them that your photos will get people to come look at the house.
If you can put together a advertising pitch and convince a few realitors that you are worth the price you want to charge, you can make it worth it. Take a lot of samples and be sure to explain what you can do that they can't (i.e. long shutter tripod shots, sunset/sunset shots of the exterior, super wide angle...). Give some examples of your work and compare it to the ones they have listed.

eschelar

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/15/2006 11:32:25 AM · #7

Sorry if this is a little out there, but every time I see this thread, I can't help but thinking....

Yeah, shooting houses for realtors COULD be worth it... If you really hate the house... and have some nice assistants to hold the big guns...

I hear that some people don't have the patience and just burn the whole village... Personal taste I guess... ;)

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/15/2006 12:38:21 PM · #8

Thanks everyone for your input. That's what a really like about this site is everyone willing to share their side of the story and experience. So, at this point it sounds like it'll be mostly regular homes, not mansions, but will include some ranch lands. I'll have to check to see what some of the other realtors are paying people to do these shoots. I was thinking that $20-40 a house would be fine to start with. I can do 360's though, so maybe I could charge more for that.

Nonetheless, I'm not going to quit my day job, but I figured a few extra bucks might not hurt anything. Thanks LoudDog, Bear, boomtap, eschelar, davidcara, & technoshroom for all your help.

eschelar

Canon EOS-7D

06/15/2006 12:41:29 PM · #9

Don't thank me, thank the ladies... :)

kawesttex

Apple iPhone 11 Pro

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

06/15/2006 12:45:50 PM · #10

I have recently done shots for a builder. They would give me a list of about 18 to 25 houses at a time. I would shoot interior and exterior providing 4 to 7 pictures per house, full res and resized for web, for $25 per house. Post processing was generally minimal, about 15-25 minutes per house (with post proc). Makes for a busy Saturday but the check was nice. 3 shoots have netted me about $1200!

SJCarter

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

06/15/2006 12:58:01 PM · #11

What I have done a little of lately is shooting the RE for the home owners - not the realtors. I've found that the home owners are not only willing to pay more, they're much better to work with. They can then take the photos that they're happy with to the realtor or use the photos to sell the RE themselves. :-) I'm getting $35/hour + cost of prints and/or CD of shots they select.

Message edited by author 2006-06-15 12:58:37.

vxpra

Pentax K100D

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF

06/15/2006 01:19:29 PM · #12

Shoot the realtors, not the homes. Sorry, went hiking last night and one of my most prolific wild flowers spots has been torn up to make room for a 3.5 million dollar spec house.

ladyhawk22

Sony DSLR-A700

Sony SAL-50F14 Normal 50mm f/1.4 Autofocus Lens for the Sony

06/15/2006 02:26:52 PM · #13

jahoward--

I'd be interested in knowing how you approached the realtors. This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while too, in order to have some extra cash for lenses and such. I'll cross my fingers that it works out really well for you!

06/15/2006 04:06:35 PM · #14

Originally posted by ladyhawk22:

Thanks for the crossed fingers. I'll need some luck with this being is how I haven't done any real estate photography before.

How I got connected up with a realtor is sort of a long story. I was at a rodeo shooting some of the bull riding and as it turns out a friend of mine was one of the bull riders, so I took a few shots and emailed them to him and then he shared them with his father in law who is a realtor and he emailed me and asked if I was interested in doing some real estate shots for him. So, now that I think about it, I know several realtors, so I think once a get a few shots down for a small real estate portfolio, I will just roll it out to my other realtor friends and see if they can use my services.

I don't expect to make a ton of money, but as it turns out, I have every other Friday off from my "real" job, so I was thinking I might be able to shoot 2 or 3 days a month and if I can bring home a few hundred bucks at the end of the month, then that's great.

Soooo, to answer your question, it was dumb luck and it's really all about who you know. If you're a homeowner, I would start with the realtor you used to buy your house. Good luck ladyhawk!

Cheers,
-Jeremy

06/15/2006 04:09:05 PM · #15

Originally posted by vxpra:

Shoot the realtors, not the homes. Sorry, went hiking last night and one of my most prolific wild flowers spots has been torn up to make room for a 3.5 million dollar spec house.

I know exactly what you're saying. There is such an awesome place to go hiking around here and the only access point to this mountain was at the end of this little street and now some developer is building four houses at the end of the street, so now I doubt we'll be able to hike up that hill any more. (people tend to frown upon us hiking through their yards.)