Shooting real estate...

Rylan Zolinski

Rylan Zolinski

Well-known member
I was wondering how many of you here shoot video for real estate? I just started this and so far things are looking up for me. I live in Canada and in the area I am in, real estate is booming hard and I'm the only existing person to offer this type of service (that I know of and from what I was told). I've had a few clients already doing free shoots to build my portfolio and also had a meeting with a very popular magazine in the area that wants us to shoot video for them to advertise on their website.

I know there are going to be positive and negative experiences with shooting real estate and I'm interested in hearing your stories. So, what are your experiences so far in this type of market?
 
Here is what we do:
www.cinematicwalkthroughs.com

Its a viable business stream, but you have to be priced right to make money. Unfortunately, most realtors do not understand the value of quality video. Its hard to justify a professional when there are virtual tour companies doing 360 degree sea-sickness products for under $100. There are also lots of kids with flip cameras. Our clients are $1mil plus and there are plenty of them around where we are based.

I think if you have a passion for it and there is a market, by all means explore it. I don't create many cinematic walk throughs anymore, as the bottom dropped out of the market in 2008. Thankfully, I have other business streams that are doing very well.


Jason
 
OK that is about 71 bucks an hour, maybe.
How far did you have to drive to get to the location?
Did you have to ship the job or deliver it, what were your costs for that and how long did that take?
It's all about your time and costs. If your driving two hours one way for a 1.5 hour shoot, your not making any money or less than you can make making burgers. Don't forget you have to keep your gear up and soon than later you will need to replace that camera. So you have add a little on to your rate to to put into gear upkeep and replacement that also includes your car and other over head costs.
Most plumbers I know make more that 71 bucks per hour for his business, don't forget you will not get to keep the full 71 per hour.
You have to cover your overhead as I have previously talked about above.
Also how many jobs can you get and realistically deliver in a day?
Don't forget business is not all just shooting and editing you have paper work and phone time ect.
Think about it you may be under selling yourself on your rates.
 
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Hotwood said:
OK that is about 71 bucks an hour, maybe.
How far did you have to drive to get to the location? 15 minutes. Max. The population here is 250,000.

Did you have to ship the job or deliver it, what were your costs for that and how long did that take? No I did not. I distribute it by uploading it to multiple sites and provide a link to the realtor so they can embed it onto their site.

Don't forget you have to keep your gear up and soon than later you will need to replace that camera. So you have add a little on to your rate to to put into gear upkeep and replacement that also includes your car and other over head costs. I shoot with a T2i and steadicam. The only replacement gear I think I will ever need will be the T2i and that won't be for quite some time. But of course I still put a percentage away for gear.

Also how many jobs can you get and realistically deliver in a day? It's an untapped market where I am for video tours. Also, real estate has been booming consistently through the years. Like I said, I just started doing this. I think I can realistically get 2 shoots a day, 5 days a week. We already have a client that wants us to shoot for their magazine that features million dollar homes (that's literally what the magazine is published for; it's not a real estate magazine. It's a magazine to show off upscale homes). And I shot some videos for a few realtors to build my portfolio. I am just getting my name out now.

Don't forget business is not all just shooting and editing you have paper work and phone time ect.
Think about it you may be under selling yourself on your rates. This is where I need to sharpen up my time management and organizational skills. :p
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See above.
 
No but again you have to run the numbers in your "own" operation to see if you are even clearing $50.00 per hour in the end. A guy has more overhead in NY NY than a guy in Ashville NC.
or so it would seem till you break down the numbers.
If your client base is over a wide area of say 125- 200 miles in every direction from home base your travel time and cost is going to be far more that some guy in NY NY that travels only out at the most 10 miles. You have to look at your own over head to find your own numbers. For me Studio space is far less here in Mid-Michigan per sq ft. that I have paid in NY NY or LA but I travel more and farther now, so my numbers are different here than what I had in both NY and LA.
You can't be lazy about this and base your rates on what another guys rates are. You have to run your own numbers, who knows the other guy may be under pricing his product and you may have even higher over head costs and if you under cut his rates you may be really killing your own business.


mainstreetprod said:
I don't think many shooters consider 71 bucks an hour chump change. Even if it's only 50 after drive time. Just sayin'.
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mainstreetprod said:
I don't think many shooters consider 71 bucks an hour chump change. Even if it's only 50 after drive time. Just sayin'.
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$71 an hour is fine if you're working 40+ paid hours per week, week in and week out. But you'll never put the kids through Yale if it's just one 5-hour gig a week.
 
I think some video people miss the point if they think their high production values are extremely important in real estate videos. Sure video quality might make the property look more valuable, but viewers don't need smoothly flowing shots of furniture from the perspective of a 5 yr old child. All they want or need is to get a quick idea that any of the 15 homes they are considering is worth an in-person visit.
What quick & dirty auto-irised walk-thrus give you is a realistic idea of how the home unfolds and flows from one area to the next, showing relationships of rooms, storage, bathrooms, stairways, patios, etc., etc., that individual shots don't.

I used to think that $1000 videos could surely pay for themselves for sellers. Then I came across this local service that does a decent enough looking 5-7 minute home walk-through virtual tours. http://whirligighd.com/
For shooting, editing, music, narration and a web presence you'd pay . . .
$99!
Or they'll take your footage and do the rest for $30. How and why would anyone compete with that?
 
BVX said:
I think some video people miss the point if they think their high production values are extremely important in real estate videos. Sure video quality might make the property look more valuable, but viewers don't need smoothly flowing shots of furniture from the perspective of a 5 yr old child. All they want or need is to get a quick idea that any of the 15 homes they are considering is worth an in-person visit.
What quick & dirty auto-irised walk-thrus give you is a realistic idea of how the home unfolds and flows from one area to the next, showing relationships of rooms, storage, bathrooms, stairways, patios, etc., etc., that individual shots don't.

I used to think that $1000 videos could surely pay for themselves for sellers. Then I came across this local service that does a decent enough looking 5-7 minute home walk-through virtual tours. http://whirligighd.com/
For shooting, editing, music, narration and a web presence you'd pay . . .
$99!
Or they'll take your footage and do the rest for $30. How and why would anyone compete with that?
Click to expand...

Thankfully I have no competitors like this. Honestly, how can they profit at $99? That's insane!
 
You may not have any competitors like that that now. What about next week or next month?
It can all change in the blink of an eye. Don't build your entire business on this one thing real estate.


Morox said:
Thankfully I have no competitors like this. Honestly, how can they profit at $99? That's insane!
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You may very well have a competitor like this. While this one is local, I ran across another one recently (can't remember the name) with similar pricing that markets to realtors nationwide.
 
From a business standpoint you need to analyze the market and target the exact kind of people you wish to produce for. We have an extremely well targeted segment in the real estate sector. Producing a 7 minute video for that targeted segment along with web and other materials will cost our clients from between $50k-120k with most of them averaging in the $80k range. We generally have stayed away from the everyone and their dog bottom end of the market as our research showed it didn't have the price/performance ratio that fit our required margins.
 
craigbowman said:
From a business standpoint you need to analyze the market and target the exact kind of people you wish to produce for. We have an extremely well targeted segment in the real estate sector. Producing a 7 minute video for that targeted segment along with web and other materials will cost our clients from between $50k-120k with most of them averaging in the $80k range. We generally have stayed away from the everyone and their dog bottom end of the market as our research showed it didn't have the price/performance ratio that fit our required margins.
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And this is where I went wrong from the beginning. My business partner and I tried to target everything for video production. He then came up with this analogy that fit perfectly: If you're a professional snowboarder, are you going to buy your equipment from Walmart or a place that specializes in snowboards?

We are doing much better now than before. Keeping other potential markets in mind is always great, but from what I have learned so far, focusing on one particular market is key.
 
We've shot 6 homes so far and 4 of them were for our portfolio while the last one was a paid shoot and the other was to get $500 off of advertising for a popular magazine in the area. We're gaining momentum! :)
 
Someone from a few provinces over got in contact with us and wants us to do a weekly t.v show on his realty channel that he owns here. Things are looking up!
 
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