This posts answers the question: who pays for professional real estate photography (REP)?. Especially now that most smartphones have high performing camera. Why are people still paying for professional photography of their properties? We will show that there’s still enough demand for REP to build a successful business with your expertise in photography?
Something to consider…
According to the NRA’s code of ethics, realtors are responsible for providing true pictures. Either realtors take the photo themselves or decide to hire someone, they will be taking care of any cost of property marketing. Therefore, if you are a real estate photographer, the people paying for your services are realtors and brokerages. Occasionally, there could be homeowners who hire you for one-off photography jobs if your network is big enough.
Having worked with many real estate photographers and researching the market for scaling insights, here are some things we have learned. This blog will talk about how and where your revenue source for your photography business.
Why are professional real estate photos needed?
If you are a professional photographer in another niche just taking on some real estate job, you are on the right track. Here’s why.
Professional photography is an essential part of the buying and selling process. Stats shows that over 50% of buyers found properties online (website listings). Have you ever considered a product by just reading the description? I guess most likely not. You want to see photos.
Website traffic is hard to come by these days. Why? because there is so much competition to get traffic online in the real estate market. An agent or a brokerage will want to make the best impression possible for potential buyers. They are the marketers for homes, and you, as a professional photographer, provides them with ammunition.
Do Realtors take their own pictures?
Beginners do. Realtors who are photographers will most likely take their own photos. However, in either cases, one will quickly learn that it is not the ideal option. For those taking amateur photography or listing on their own, their property will not get as many visits and online engagements. The multi-talented realtor, mr or mrs double trouble, will not be able to keep up that work rate. It does not make sense for an individual to attempt to do everything. Taking pictures and working as a full time realtor. Dealing with real estate clients will take up the lion’s share of their time. Photos? Perhaps the first dozen… So guess what, they will need you. The professionals.
How much are realtors spending in their annual marketing fee?
While the majority of realtors (53%) are spending less than $5000 annually on marketing, 1 in 8 agents spend MORE than $20,000. The TOP 3% spends more than $80,000 annually.
Marketing works. Professionally produced marketing media (videos/photos) are essential in the sales process of the real estate industry.
So you guessed it, the bulk of this budget will be spent on property photos and videos. That is where you come in.
Let’s break down some statistics together.
5.34 Million homes were sold in 2019. 682,000 newly constructed homes were sold in 2019. Sources.
Running the numbers on the size of the market demand for your services, roughly 4 million homes were listed and sold last year using professionally photographed real estate photos in the US. Well that’s a lot.
Let’s average per state, totally unrealistic but each state will average around 80,000 homes. Of course, depending on which state you live in, this number will be more or less.
Another step is to divide by city. Roughly if there are 10,000 homes on the market last year in your city and approximate area. The market cap for real estate photography jobs looks quite appealing.
So, next, how much does an agent spend on 1 listing?
To sell a home, the agent will spend $100 to $300 per photoshoot. These numbers may vary depending on property size and add-ons. If you also provide real estate video walkthrough the fee per home will be double or triple that (perhaps even more).
Let’s just arrive at an average of $200 per job. How many jobs would you have to take to arrive at a $80,000 annual gross revenue for your business?
Let’s work backwards.
To make $80,000 at $200 per listing. You will need to complete 400 jobs/year.
That divides into 12 months are 33 homes per month. Maybe there are 2 winter months where you do not work.
That makes it 40 homes/month. 10 jobs per week. And 2 jobs daily.
Simple enough.
Well, yes and no.
Finding clients will be a business problem that you will have to overcome. Most often this is where most businesses fail. They do not allocate enough time and effort to their sales process. No matter how good your product or services can be, if you can put them in front of your target audience, you will not make a revenue. You need to find the time to invest in a sale strategy.
Having said that, word of mouth is still one of the top ways that photographers like yourself get clients. But that is if you want to base the success of your business on an external variable that you cannot control.
How many clients will you need to make a steady income with just real estate photography?
If a real estate agent can close on average 4 to 5 listings per year. At a 20 percent success rate, perhaps each of them has 25 listings a year that they need to market. Brokerages even more, 100 listings.
These are rough estimates. We are here doing the math but we have not worked directly with real estate agents and brokerages in your area. You will have to base these goals on the situation you are in. A good advice is to overshoot.
Your goal is to get 400 jobs a year. Meaning you would need to work with at least 2 brokerages and 8 agents. Your network will grow over time as your portfolio grows. Quality will speak for itself.
How can you find those who pay for real estate photography?
Where do these RE brokers and realtors hangout? And how can you work with them?
There are a few simple steps that you can take to get started.
Identify your target client
- You need to figure out who are the ideal clients you would like to work with. Chances are, they will be returning clients and you will see them more than once a month. That’s really good. Think.
- A few questions to consider: What do they look like? How old are they? What kind of property are they selling? How good are they at their job? Etc.
- Once you have narrow the demand for your services it’s time to move on to narrowing down the service you are offering. What is it that make your services stand out to your ideal clients?
Identify the target clients’ taste
- Are they in the lower, middle, or upper end market?
- When they order a media package, will they be asking for videos and/or drone footage as well?
- What is their expected turnaround time?
- How does the finished product that is best for them look like?
Identify their brand preferences
- What brand do your target customers like to associate with?
- How should your website and marketing strategy be presented to cater to them?
Identify your target persona
- Who are you talking to?
- Dig down deep and imagine your ideal client that you would like to work with.
- Try to come up with 2 – 3 persona. Once you are happy with them, time to move on to the final step.
Build your messaging catering to your ideal client
- Get a few pictures out, literally print them out and match them with your target person
- What would you like them to know about your services?
- How can you help them?
- What benefits can they expect when working with you that other photographers cannot offer?
This list is simple. Like many things recommended in this blog. BUT. Yes, big but. It is not easy. You are an entrepreneur. Your business success will depend on how you can best allocate your time and resources. If it makes sense to you to do everything yourself, then by all means, have at it. However, Rome is not built in one day or by one person. Even though you are just starting out, you should begin to think about which part of your business you can delegate to others at a reasonable cost for your business.
The first thing you should consider is outsourcing your photo editing to an editing house like us. We provide photographers like yourself 12 hours turnaround time with consistent quality post-processing. This can save you many hours of which you can spend on looking and booking with new potential clients.
For more information check out our services at HAVAH EDITS.
Conclusion
If you were considering photography as a business, we hope our article helped you somewhat in navigating the initial steps. Finding out who your potential clients are is a great help.
We have gone over: the demands for real estate photography in details, the reasons why professional photography is still preferred; the viability of this business model; and how and where you can find some potential clients.
The question can move from “who pays for real estate photography?” to “how can you get started in REP?”.
