what to charge for real estate photos

[briansommers]

I'm trying to get into the real estate photo area - no not to get rich but just to get exposure and get myself out there. I live in a small town and am just curious as to what others charge for this..

also:

how much would you charge for a front cover of the real estate section in the sunday newspaper?

thanks
Brian S

p.s. what I'm really trying to do is use this to break into architectural photography and someday do the high end stuff.

[Landis]

Brian, I may not know much about this niche of the market, but I have a feeling you won't get rich doing this. I think that most realtors carry their own digital camera and snap away. They probably use pros only for the very high end homes where they need interior and exterior shots. I'm waiting to hear back from a realator friend of mine and will report back.

[rkunderhill]

This is not an area you want to get into, unless all you want to do is shoot houses. Now interior shots for builders is different, but exterior shots for Realtors will take up a lot of time. I used to develop film for two different companies that did this and their photographers started about 7:00am and finished about 5:00pm. But now with digital cameras, a lot of Realtors shoot their own houses.

If you want to shot architectural images, go to builders and work out a deal to shoot their interiors while adding the outside as a freebie. Most photographers shoot by the hour with an initial charge for the setup in a new area the builder is starting.

[briansommers]

ahh, thanks for that
I'm a roof/floor truss estimator for my day job - so I'm in a lot of contact with a lot of builders/contractors etc. - shouldn't I be trying to contact the contractor instead of the builder? or when you say builders you mean contractors? and do they use these images then for advertising? in other words its the photos used in the brochures, etc ??

thanks, any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

[rkunderhill]

The builder selling the house. Like Ryland Homes is a builder and they sell their homes.

[Ididntdoit8705]

My uncle is a very successful realtor and he takes all of his pictures himself.

[briansommers]

I can see that I need to refocus and go after the builder - non-the-less open houses gets you in and a chance to practice anyway - up to a limit - I don't think they waould want you to be setting up lights during an open house - <chuckle>

[zeeman]

We have a real estate company here in Spain's mediterranean coast and we have our own photographer.

He is only paid as an administrative employee, not matter how many photos he does. He gets additional payment based on distance from the company's headquarters to any promotion we need photos of.

Its true, however, that most of the real estate companies dont have a photographer, they make the photos themselves using, sometimes, a mobile phone with camera !!!

Geez, that's why we are so special :P

Brian, also note that big developers and construction company might need a photographer for their catalogs, but, on the other hand, if they sell off-plan they base their catalogs in "infography", that's drawings with Photoshop, Autocad or whatever program they use.

[happycamper]

I did some work for RE/MAX last year, through the realtor that we bought our house from. I didn't charge her much at all really, for the amount of time and driving involved, but when she saw how much money she was paying me for something they really can do themselves...............well let's just say it was definitely a waste of money for them. Especially since I had to resize my photos so small, the loss of quality just didn't make it worth it. I ended up mainly doing the higher end homes that went on the full page ads, interior and exterior photos both, which made much more sense to me.

Just my 2 cents! Good luck!