Want more business?

[HankCastello]

Not only did VM have a good sound article in the April issue, they had several other good articles for video pros - including one that could probably put an extra $1k - $4k in your bank account each month.

Real estate video walk-throughs.  The article details how you can charge $200 - $300 per video and all you need is gear you already have - a good, low-light camera, wide angle lens, good audio capability for adding a narration and the ability to create Flash video for the Web.

Now, I wouldn't grab my camera and go anywhere for $200, but consider that the average realtor has dozens of listings and gets several new ones each month.  Now, just how many realtors are in YOUR area?  You could possibly line up six to ten houses to shoot in a single day.  Maybe twice that number.  Consider the time and effort needed to make the same money shooting houses that it would take to produce a wedding video and your interest should peak!

[BillGrant]

I have had the same thought Hank, over the years. But, aparently in my area, there is a "virtual tour" company that does this for $75 adn the realtor's I have talked to are apparently not motivated by quality...
Bill

[Cole]

I have been thinking about this for awhile but maybe now I will give it some effort. I did a search in my area and found one that was pretty low quality. The video had someone walk through the house (on screen) and talk about each room. No lighting besides the house lights, ok audio, but no stabilization. He was charging a little different than the guy from the article. He based it on the selling price ($150 for every 100K in the asking price). I am going to interview a few realtors that I know to get their opinions and hopefully access to do a few for free. Once the demo is up and running I will then network through the area and see what happens. It is fairly low overhead and I don't need any new equipment. If it takes off I might pick up a jib for some of the external shots, but I kind of wanted one anyway.

I have had the same thought Hank, over the years. But, aparently in my area, there is a "virtual tour" company that does this for $75 adn the realtor's I have talked to are apparently not motivated by quality...
Bill

I have seen a ton of the "Virtual Tours" but they are made up of mostly stills or at best a 360 view of a room. Also most didn't have audio narration which is half of the appeal for the video. If you can have decent production value and still make it worth your time this could really take off. People like motion and would prefer to listen than read. It might not happen over night but these could become the expected standard over the still shots. Not much different than convincing people the value of Wedding Video over stills. Stills have been the standard, video is the new kid.

I will keep you all posted on how it goes.

Cole

[HankCastello]

Good luck, Cole!  Keep us posted.

As for the videotour competition - realtors are always in competition with each other.  If one could have a much better quality video (and website) than his peers, he'd probably go for it in a heartbeat.

[On a Roll]

I did one of these a while back. It was fun, and didn't take a lot of time. I really need to talk to my landlord - he's a real estate agent. I'd be interested in taking on projects like this again.

Hank, I know you're saying you wouldn't unpack your cameras for that price, and while $200 doesn't sound like much to produce a video,  minute per minute it pays as much as a wedding (if not more). The walk-through video I did took me a whopping 30 minutes to put on tape, and just a couple hours to edit and package. If you kept yourself busy, you could theoretically do 20+ of these things a week. Considering that tons of houses are on the market these days, you're not likely to run out of business, either.

Now, I like wedding video too much to give em up, but the extra income is really tempting.

[HankCastello]

Part of the difference may be that we live 90 minutes from the nearest decent-size town (Tulsa) and three hours from any really big cities (OKC & DFW).  We live in such a backwoods area that many residents still don't have DVD players yet, so no work available in the immediate area. 

[kwshaw1]

I doubt there's much money to be made doing real-estate videos unless one were to make a determined effort to specialize in that. Most real estate web sites are oriented around text and photos, and when my wife and I look at houses online that's enough for us to get a pretty good idea whether we like a place. Keep in mind that houses are static objects which don't require video to transmit an impression of them, unless you want to show a bird hopping around the back yard or something like that.

I've done one real estate project for a foreclosure ad company, and after a couple days of driving around taking both photos and video of several places they only used the photos for their TV ad - and I didn't make enough on that project to want to do it again.

If you want to make real money doing videos you're better off looking for a few big projects, not dozens of little ones. And if you want to make money in real estate, buy some.   

[HankCastello]

There are tons of small businesses out there who need websites and/or video on their websites.  You could probably get most to want to do a new video several times a year, thus building repeat business.

[On a Roll]

Wow Kevin, from your last post I'd swear you were kidnapped and replaced by a real estate agent with a thing against videographers! 

My opinion has always been that whatever photos can do, video can do 29.97 times better every second. But then, as a videographer who doesn't touch still photography, I am a bit biased.

The project you were doing doesn't really sound at all like the sort of real estate video project that the article was describing. The last time I shot a real estate video (admittedly it was a while ago) it only took me about 30 minutes to tape. Well, I was there for probably more than an hour, but I spent half of that time talking to the neighbor about our company, so that hardly counts. In a few hours, I had the walkthrough complete and ready to send to the real estate agent. It wasn't a lot of cash, but the $350 I charged for a whopping 3 hours of work (total) felt pretty good. Compare that to the 40 or so that goes into a $2,000 wedding, and real estate video looks far better on an hour-by-hour basis.

And when you say that there's not really any reason for real estate video, you have to keep in mind that there are a LOT of people who feel the same exact way about wedding video, and we all know those folks are wrong, don't we? Just because you personally don't see an interest in it doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of potential homeowners who wouldn't love to get a virtual walkthrough before they packed up and drove across the country to see the house in person. And where photos are nice and all, they don't convey the spatial boundaries of a room the same way a video moving through the house can. A picture shows you what a room looks like, but you're not going to spend your life sitting in a corner looking at the rooms in your house - you're going to spend your life walking around in your house. Sure a picture might give you an idea what a room looks like, but a video will show you how it feels to move room from room, and gives you an honest appraisal you can't get from photos alone.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm making a case for real estate videos. I don't do them, and I doubt I'll ever have the gumption to go out there and wrangle up the business to do them. All the same, I see it as an interesting medium that might indeed be fun to produce.

At the very least, I do agree with one thing you said wholeheartedly.

if you want to make money in real estate, buy some.

Cheers!

[kwshaw1]

And when you say that there's not really any reason for real estate video, you have to keep in mind that there are a LOT of people who feel the same exact way about wedding video, and we all know those folks are wrong, don't we?

The difference is that a wedding is an active event where capturing motion and sound is inherently useful, whereas real estate is static and doesn't require those things to convey the essence of a property. When my wife and I look at houses online (which we do a lot), I'd rather glance at a couple of photos of a property to decide whether I'm interested than spend time watching a video of it, which usually is just a photo montage set to music anyway.

If anyone here finds a way to make decent money doing real estate videos, by all means go for it. But realistically, this is a task better suited to still photography - might be better to approach it from that side if you want to get some real estate business.

[HankCastello]

I rather agree with Kevin here, but I do feel there is a way to make video work - include the realtor (if he/she is a really good speaker/salesperson).

Let them do what they would do in person with a prospect,  but do it in the video - the full sales pitch, telling about the efficient heating/air system, the tile floor that will likely last a lifetime, the great insulation, etc. - all things that a photo (and video) can't show.  All the while, the realtor should be selling themselves and get the prospects to want to contact them right away. 

All this a video can do and a photo cannot.  But it will be up to you to sell the realtor.

[kwshaw1]

Hmmm...another angle here would be to make a video of the realtor selling him/herself, and maybe add a collage of currently available properties. I might watch a video covering several different houses more readily than I'd watch one of a single property. Just a thought...