I just wondered if anyone on here had gotten into any real-estate photography on a part-time basis.

How did it work for you? Was it a huge hassle working with realtors? What kind of return on your time investment did you see?


KTHX,

Teh P

Both my mom and stepdad are realtors. My stepdad does his own MLS photography and puts a ****load of miles on his car and travels all the time in between appointments. For him it's more of a return because he is earning the commissions for selling the houses.

I'd imagine it's not quite as profitable to just take the pictures, especially when you consider the amount of time and distance you are traveling. Though I couldn't comment for sure without knowing what the pay is like. I imagine it's not much per house, as an MLS commission alone is somewhere in the $100-$250 range IIRC.

As far as hassles, I don't know about working with the agents as a photographer, but working with the home owner is often an issue when people fail to do even a modest amount of cleaning before the pictures are taken. Realtors don't like that because people looking at them online are likely to dismiss the house that much quicker.

The most important thing if you're doing this, so I'm told, is to shoot the best features of the house, and get them entirely. Meaning full view of front/back of the house, kitchen, maybe master bed/bath, pool or garage, basement if finished.

I'll ask him more about it next time I talk to him.

those craigslist ads sparking interest?

I wasn't aware of ads... I was just curious.

oh word, i see them here all the time and figured that's where you had heard about it.

I've never done that, although I have been paid a couple times by friends of mine to replace the crappy photos that their realtor had posted up on the MLS after the houses sat on the market for 6+ months with no showings! I have a good track record - both houses sold within 3 weeks of putting up the new images onto the MLS. I've looked into it, but the money doesn't seem to be there now especially with the way the market is in my area.

It's a hard sell - it's an upfront cost for the realtor regardless of a purchase, and the owner doesn't feel like they should cover the cost seeing as how they are already getting taken for 6% from a realtor who can't take good enough pictures to market their property.

I guess the way to go is to offer your services to the broker/head realtor, not to the grunt realtor on the street.