Thread: Photography question for the realtors.

I have been contemplating doing this on the side for a while and finally figured I would ask people in the business if this is a decent idea or not.

My wife and I had been looking for houses over the last couple of years and we looked on multiple websites around our area. The problem is, almost 90% of the listing we looked at online featured the absolute worst pictures you can imagine and I know we passed up some great houses that just had poor showings on the site. This was a huge problem when looking in another city too. Even if something looked OK there was no way to just drive over and check. Pictures could have solved this issue.

Either the pictures were of poorest quality you have ever seen, like they had been shot with a cell phone. Or the listing only posted two to three pictures and they showed nothing of the house.
Needless to say all of these listings got skipped by us when looking online and some of these are actually still listed on the site months later. With so many people looking for houses online, and unless I'm missing something here like a trade secret, this seems like a real misstep by realtors.

So my question/idea that I wanted to start doing was offering a service or photo shoot of sorts to realtors where I would go in to there listings and get multiple shots that show the house off properly. Getting nice shots of the outside, inside, each room, etc. and all done with a nice camera with a good lens and lighting instead of a cell phone camera. Creating a gallery of the shots to link too or host the shoot on their own site.

Is this a service that realtors would be interested in or want to hire out for? This seems like an obvious thing, but time after time and site after site 90% of the listings have no pictures showing off the house to potential buyers.

I apologize if I'm way off on this, just thought I would get real advice and ideas from the people who do it.

I have been in real estate for 11 years. There are a lot of companies who offer this service, but if you have some kind of network or connections with realtors, this could definitely be a great side business for you. Many agents take the photos themselves, but professional photos are the way to go. Good luck to you!!

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Wow!! I can't believe the difference in those pictures..

I can...lighting is everything. So many listings are so poorly presented I wonder if anyone ever even comes to look at the property.

Originally Posted by GTRRR

I have been in real estate for 11 years. There are a lot of companies who offer this service, but if you have some kind of network or connections with realtors, this could definitely be a great side business for you. Many agents take the photos themselves, but professional photos are the way to go. Good luck to you!!

Thank you and thanks for the heads up. I have searched for this type of service and always came up blank, nice to know that I'm not way off.

Originally Posted by Christopher

YES.

let me give you an example of the difference between my listing photographer and two agents doing their own pictures. The listing in examples was listed at the time for 989k.

[Pictures edited out]

EVERY listing appointment i have been on and shown examples of my pictures compared to others, i have ended up getting the listing. pictures are extremely important in this digital age we live in.

have legit pictures, charge a low fee, you'll be amazed at how much money you can make. oh, and get paid on the spot.

Wow, that's exactly what I'm talking about. What a huge difference. I definitely see the nicer listing having more professional stuff being done, but this would make such a difference at a lower sale price too.

Heck anything is better than the cell phone pictures that plague multiple sites I've been on.

Thanks again everyone, I knew I'd get good responses here.

You get what you pay for, definitely. The majority of the single-family realtors that I know simply won't spring for the cost of a photographer. The few I know that handle high-end listings here and in other states will only use a pro photographer, because they know that presentation is everything. For commercial real estate, this is even more important.

I spoke with a realtor out of Portland tonight and she mentioned that she usually goes through a professional photographer for houses above 200K, and pays about $100-$150 for a listing.
I would imagine the high end sellers are paying more for the shoot. Going to talk with a few locals tomorrow and see how they go about doing their listings and try and snag a few clients for the trial run.

I've been trying to get my mom to use a photographer for years... or at least learn how to compose a photo.

Any ideas on a decent pricing structure for real estate photography. I was thinking $100 starting out for a basic shoot. Then up somewhere between $300 to $500 for more elaborate shoots with lighting staging, planning etc.

What do you guys think is fair?