New Real Estate Video Tour - Feedback Wanted

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dust'n the callipygous

Well-known member
Hey! Here's what I like better here on this one, compared to the last one.

1. It wasn't rushed. I felt like I had time to see the home. Good job. There was one little part where you got a little ...I don't know....but it was a little choppy and confusing. (1:43-2:07)
2. Spacial orientation. I could feel you trying to orient me to where I was...trying to give me a feel for the space and an understanding of it. Still some work to do, ...but much better. I could feel, (by shot selection and progression) that you were trying to achieve that.
3. Shot selection/planning. Particularly in the kitchen, I could see the wide setup shot, followed by closeup shot. I saw the several times. Nice.
4. Some closeups. (Kitchen, bathroom) Both important places to do so....(only moving shots though)

Congrats on the opportunity to apply/progress! :)

Something to consider.

No static (non-motion) shots? I totally appreciate the feel that moving shots give. That said...static shots can serve an equally important purpose....not right or wrong, just something to consider. :) Shoot'um up!
 
Seems fine for what it is, hard to showcase features in an empty house. You could consider some walk through to give a sense of flow.

If you don't mind, how much time did you spend on this (shoot/edit) and did you get a fair price for your time. Absolutely no one does this in my region and am considering offering the service. Most just do a couple of stills, some highend listings may do a slideshow, and some still do the silly quicktime 360 panarama, but nobody does video and certainly not the steadicam walkthroughs that I could offer.
 
Yeah, this house was supposed to be staged. Dont know hat happened. I charged $300 for video and photos. I do that price for anything under 3000 sq ft. Anything over is 1/10 square footage, so a 6500 sq ft house would be $650 for video and 16 edited photos. I was thinking about offering walk through tours as well. I've got a Merlin, but I'm still not sure how to price that kind of tour. I might offer that at the same price point and move this kind up just a little bit.

I'm thinking about offering full agent-guided tours. It'd be a guided walk- through, then I'd go back through and get some insert shots.

Most people around here just do the cheesy virtual tour 360 photo tours as well. I've done a few, but I think they usually look bad and don't give a good sense of layout.

I've got another one I'll post later today. Almost finished.
 
Cool thanks for the feedback, that's the price point I'm looking for and think it is reasonable. As for steadicam, I'm not thinking one shot walkthrough, simply adding some shots to the mix to set the space and sense of flow. I can't stand the 360 tours and would never consider doing it. Adding a few stills so the agent doesn't have to seems reasonable.
 
Yeah I offer tons of upgrades too. Some of it I just throw in. I do 16 stills for the regular price. Thats as many as you can put on the MLS here. Upgrading to 25 (max on realtor.com) is an extra $50. Encode in HD is $50, although I usually just do that one free. Voice Overs are extra. Flyers, DVDs, anything like that.

I think my walkthrough tours would just mean steadicam and maybe a few panning shots on a tripod. No sliders or jibs and minimal editing. Maybe 10 shots or so. Something really simple that wouldnt take more than 15 minutes to shoot. I usually spend 2-3 hours in a house if I'm doing photos and video.
 
How did you break into the market? I've done a little research and there doesn't seem to be anyone in my area doing this. The photography for most of the listings is pretty lacking, as well. How did you get the job in the first place?

I havent done much work in this field before, so I don't have any similar work to show in a reel.

Should I send the office an email? Go to an open house? Try to pick up a realtor in a bar and blackmail her?
 
I know a bunch of realtors back in greenville, where i'm from, but I didn't start shooting until I moved to charlotte. My girlfriend's brother-in-law owns a real estate/property management company. I started by offering to shoot his rental properties once a week. There are a ton of property management companies, and most are doing pretty well right now. If people aren't buying homes, they're renting. And they usually have terrible pictures that the property managers take. Nobody pays full price to have professional rental photos done, so I used that as a reason they should have them. They'll send me a list of about 5 properties one day a week and I'd drive all over town and take about 10 unedited pictures of each one, all for $100. I just use a speedlight for those, and I'm in and out of each house in about 10 minutes. To get a portfolio, on nicer properties, I took a little more time, brought a tripod along, and went back in and edited the photos. Then I shot a few sales properties on the MLS for free, actually taking time to make everything look right. Once I got what I thought was enough under my belt, I started going to agency meetings. You can just call an agency, talk to the broker-in-charge, and ask to present at one of their meetings. Really easy actually, they have people present pretty regularly. Offices usually hold meetings every week or two that most of their realtors attend, so there are plenty to get in on.

I found service in my area that delivers flyers to all real estate agents, like 4000 total across the city. I made up some nice postcards and sent them out. Only got like 3 hits back, so I definitely don't recommend doing that. Office meetings are way better. And all you need is a 5 minute presentation. I just show previous MLS photos vs. mine, edited vs. unedited photos (cloudy sky and stuff), a few numbers and stats (90% of people looking for homes search online, blah, blah, blah), and then hand out "discounted" pricing sheets and let the work speak for itself. I always do discounted sheets. The discounted rates are my actual rates, but I advertise them as being higher. Most realtors are cheap or broke, so they like to hear that they're getting a deal. Oh, I also offer 50% off for a person's first property with me. It seems to work fairly well. Once they see the photos, they don't like using their own again--usually...

For the video part, I had to start back over a little bit. Offered a few to certain clients for free, then a "half-price special if you book by this time" kind of thing. Then back to full price. I haven't been promoting that much lately. I'm actually concentrating in different areas, but still taking the real estate work that comes my way. For jut photos, it's a lot of work for only $100-$200, and the way they have to be scheduled usually ties up your whole day. I'm going to start promoting the video packages a little more soon. Most people just see those as an option for upper-end housing. Upper-end realtors see the value in quality work a lot more. I'm fine with that, because I'll get closer $500 for each one. I'd much rather have my day tied up for $500 than $150. Oh and try to find some up-and-coming builders to do the same sort of thing with. You can charge them a lot more.

Also, be careful with your licensing. I specifically state on each invoice that the photos are to be used solely by that realtor for marketing purposes and that the license expires along with the MLS listing, or within one year because they may renew the listing. Starting out, some homes I shot were listed for rent and for sale, so the one's I shot for rent, agents were taking and using them for their MLS listings. I had to put a stop to that, but I offer a do offer discounted rate if they want to use those unedited photos I've already taken. Also, if a listing expires and another agent picks it up, they may just take the current MLS photos and reuse them, whether they've paid for them or not. Most agents I've come across don't understand why that's wrong (and illegal), so just explain a little about creative content licensing and how it's being used for their marketing. Same with builders. If you take a photo of a house for sale by an individual, those photos are only being used to market that particular house. If it's for a builder, it's marketing every house that builder has and can make. Gotta increase the pricing there.

Sorry for the rambling. I feel like I've learned a lot in the 6 months I've been doing this. Hope there was something informative in there.
 
You do a nice job. Not to be too discouraging, but here's something scary for your Halloween.
I used to think the real estate market was ripe for a production company that could provide $1000 videos that would surely pay for themselves. Then I came across a local service that does decent-enough looking 5 minute home walk-through virtual tours. For shooting, editing, music, narration and a web presence you'd pay . . . $99! Or they'll take your footage and do the rest for just $40. How could anyone compete with that?
http://whirligighd.com/

I think he works along with this outfit since the graphics and voiceover guy are the same:
http://www.hdhat.com/video-tours-real-estate-agents.html
They even sell the low budget gear to get you on your way in the video bidness. My favorite is the wide angle lens that you superglue onto your iPhone.

Yes the production values aren't the greatest and the auto iris is enough to drive you nuts, but I don't think most people notice or care. And one thing about the walk-throughs, they give you a much better idea of how a house unfolds and flows from one area to the next in a way that photos or video montages can't.
 
Wow.... photos of 5 places for $100 (total, right... not $100 each) and a video for $350?
Cheap.

How many hours of work do you put into the video? And I mean count loading up your car, driving there, setting up, shooting, tearing down, editing, incorporating feedback & final delivery.
 
Yeah 5 places for $100. That was just to get my foot in the door. Started doing that on my day off from my regular job, before I quit. Usually around 5-6 hours including travel. No editing involved there, just dumping the photos onto box.net. That's just the rental side.

For sale properties it's usually $150 or $200 per house, with 16-25 edited photos. That's probably about 3-4 hours total involved. I've done four in a day, with the houses being close together. Videos start at $300, so margins are very slim. That'is why I'm looking into other areas to do video, but I may continue to work for builders or commercial properties at a higher rate. I'd say a video and photo package usually takes about 6-7 hours total. 2-3 hours on-site, 1 hour total travel time, and a couple hours editing. I've done two of these in a day, but it was a long day.
 
BVX said:
You do a nice job. Not to be too discouraging, but here's something scary for your Halloween.
I used to think the real estate market was ripe for a production company that could provide $1000 videos that would surely pay for themselves. Then I came across a local service that does decent-enough looking 5 minute home walk-through virtual tours. For shooting, editing, music, narration and a web presence you'd pay . . . $99! Or they'll take your footage and do the rest for just $40. How could anyone compete with that?
http://whirligighd.com/

I think he works along with this outfit since the graphics and voiceover guy are the same:
http://www.hdhat.com/video-tours-real-estate-agents.html
They even sell the low budget gear to get you on your way in the video bidness. My favorite is the wide angle lens that you superglue onto your iPhone.

Yes the production values aren't the greatest and the auto iris is enough to drive you nuts, but I don't think most people notice or care. And one thing about the walk-throughs, they give you a much better idea of how a house unfolds and flows from one area to the next in a way that photos or video montages can't.
Click to expand...


$99 is crazy. No way to compete with that. Good thing I don't have to, since they're only in Wisconsin right now. I agree with you that most people don't notice or care about quality, as long as that quality is decent and doesn't look like it was shot with a point-and-shoot. Their photos especially aren't good. Their portfolio has un-cropped and crooked photos with converging verticals (big no-no for real estate and architectural stuff), but I doubt most realtors even notice. They just see it as way better than their photos currently are.

Walk-through tours may be the way to go for now. It takes far less time to shoot and edit and they do give a much better sense of layout. Panning the room on a tripod isn't a whole lot better in that regard than a standard virtual tour with photos. And a walk-through tour would only add 30 minutes max to my shoot-time. I still have time to get some decent work at the prices I'm asking, but I'm definitely looking for ways out before the bargain basement guys come to town.
 
Wow great stuff man! I'm slowly trying to get into this business as well for some extra cash! Your post really gave me a good idea of what to charge what to include! How much editing is done to the photos? Is it something minimal?

Here is on of the vidoes I've done:
http://vimeo.com/16012108
 
RocanLover163 said:
Wow great stuff man! I'm slowly trying to get into this business as well for some extra cash! Your post really gave me a good idea of what to charge what to include! How much editing is done to the photos? Is it something minimal?

Here is on of the vidoes I've done:
http://vimeo.com/16012108
Click to expand...

That was good! Maybe a bit long, but you've got a good bit of detail shtos. I'm trying to cut mine shorter and shorter. A few pans are a tiny bit wobbly--mine are the same way. How'd you set your exposure and white balance? Mine usually come out a little under-exposed and orange. I guess I'm going off the window light a little too much. I like the onscreen information. I'm going to have to start doing that. Where'd you get your music? I don't like any songs I've found so far.

Photos are pretty easy to edit. I shoot everything on a tripod and make sure the camera is perfectly level on every axis. It's less work afterwards. I take bracketed shots for Exposure Fusion. Takes about 30 minutes to batch process all the files in photomatix. Then I'll go through and throw out all the non-keepers. I pull each on into photoshop and fix the lens distortion and perspective, if needed. Then I play with the levels and highlights a little to make the windows look better. It's pretty simple. I could probably batch all of that with lightroom too and save even more time. Then I'd just have to go back through and make sure they all look good. Usually about two or three photos per house need a little extra attention, so I'll have to photoshop a little bit. Usually wires behind a TV, stuff on a countertop I missed, hoses or signs outside, that kind of thing. Simple stuff that doesn't take more than 5 minutes--and I just use Photoshop Elements for most of it. CS5 is it's something complex--Content Aware Fill has come to my rescue several times.
 
All light that I used was coming from outside, and I turn on all lights in the rooms as well.

For these first videos that I have done without charging I have just used "Thievery corporation" and "Zero 7". know that now that I am charging I will have to use something I have the rights too. I have found some good website for this though with some good tracks.

As of right I take picture but do not edit them, and they know this from the beginning. Maybe I will look into this.
 
I wonder if you could do this for a small share of the commission? Agents might be more willing to let you do more houses as there is no out of pocket, but you could get a bigger price when sold and the money is available. Most houses in my area start at about $200,000, and even at the discount commission rate of 3.5%, $7000 is available for the marketing of that house, and it goes up from there. Do agents honestly think they can pocket all of that money for just taking a picture and setting it up with mls. I think 0.5% signed on to the commission contract would be more than fair to do a really good job. For this all spec rate you'd have to protect yourself with good contracts and only put the mls number on the youtube listing. You could offer cash upgrades to put on the agent's contact info etc onto the video etc. I think the fundimental problem is that despite the potential fat paycheck when a sale comes in, most agents won't risk much cash on marketing in case a seller pulls a listing before it is sold, and they have to split commission if another agent closes.

If you could get agents to buy into this, say it will save them time on less showings or whatever, and they don't have to pay up front, you might be able to get more work. It may mean having to eat your time in the short run, but could mean some good paydays down the road. I'm just not sure how you would track sales to make sure you get paid. Any thoughts?
 
I've looked into commissioned-based pricing a little bit. To me, it doesn't seem worth it. I'd have to continually follow up on every property I shoot to see if they've sold and what the final price was. Can't always count on the realtor to just send that check over. They might "forget". The higher margins would be nice, but it would probably balance out in the end with getting paid smaller amounts on every property. And payment up front pays the bills. If I'd be doing work in the hopes that I'll get paid, I'd be in the wrong business. In the end, this isn't something I'm going to make a career out of, but it works in the meantime.
 
This is fascinating and thanks for sharing. I'm doing a similar thing in California and thought I would share my experience and ideas a little. Here is the latest real-estate video that I completed a couple of months ago:

I'm not sure what the property values are in NC, this property is on the market for $35M, I did the video 50 stills and 10 360 degree panoramas for more than 10 times what your charging. I mentioned that because I think your selling yourself short on pricing. Your videos are not the typical pan up-down-left and right, its obvious that you put a lot of thought into camera moves, reveals, framing etc..

Its been my experience that good realtors are not so much price sensitive as they are time sensitive and results oriented. Three or four years ago when houses sold in hours or days there was no need to market them, they practically sold themselves. Now inventory has never been higher and it is getting increasingly more difficult for realtors to differentiate their property from the one next door and interestingly enough more difficult to get "quality" listings.

The biggest disservice that most of the 360 virtual tour pinheads was not the price but the amount of time they took to provide mostly marginal service [at best]. The realtor that I worked with was great, didn't flinch at the price but almost fell out of his chair when I told him it would take me three days to shoot it. Keep in mind this ranch is almost 160 acres.

So my long winded point is that if you do quality work, for realtors who get that they now have to market properties, your providing real value to the sales process so the challenge for you is not necessarily how to shoot quicker but to get paid considerably more for your service. I would not have done some of the videos that you have for under $1000. Before you think I'm an arrogant fool, it is the property owners that are demanding my services and its my job to make the realtor a hero, I have more work than I can do. I'm not sure what the price range for homes are in NC but if you can work with brokers that represent $1M and up properties you should be able to get $1200 for all that you offer.

I know there are people who are out there charging $99, well as they said in Caddy Shack "The World needs ditch diggers too." Good work.
 
Wow...that was pretty amazing. Properties here are nowhere near that. I'd say most around here are in the $350,000 range, but there are a ton of neighborhoods nearby with homes $750,000 and up. I guess my biggest problem is like you said. I'm targeting realtors with lower-end listings. Most of my clients have one listing above $750,000, and all else well below. I wouldn't have a problem charging closer to $1000 for a $1million house. I just need to land a few of those and move upmarket.
 
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