Any Real-Estate Videographers? (OT?) at DVinfo.net

Mike Barber · August 30th, 2006, 09:04 AM

Probably Off-Topic for this forum, but wasn't sure where else to post it (I will let the, er, wisdom of the moderators decide :wink:)

Does anyone here have any experience in doing property videography for realtors? I'm curious to know what conventions there may be in this field, and how to learn more about getting into offering this kind of service.

Waldemar Winkler · August 30th, 2006, 09:19 PM

Yes. Real estate work is a significant part of my work. Send me a PM. I'll share my experiences.

Mike Barber · August 30th, 2006, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waldemar Winkler

Yes. Real estate work is a significant part of my work. Send me a PM. I'll share my experiences.

Apparently PMs are disabled by the SysOp... I got the message "Your administrator has disabled private messaging."

I tried to send an email via your profile, but got the message "That user has specified that they do not wish to receive emails."

can you email me at: info _at_ arzher _dot_ com

Janice DeMille · August 31st, 2006, 04:13 AM

Waldemar could you contact me also? I am very interested in learning more about Real Estate Videography.

thanks

Ron Ball · August 31st, 2006, 06:48 AM

Can y'all copy me on this information? I, too, would like to explore opportunities to expand my exposure/business. Thanks

Mike Teutsch · August 31st, 2006, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waldemar Winkler

Yes. Real estate work is a significant part of my work. Send me a PM. I'll share my experiences.

The point of this forum is to share information and experiances, how about posting some for all????

Mike

Mike Oveson · August 31st, 2006, 08:06 AM

I had a company ask me to do this but I turned them down because I was moving. They wanted to pay me $50 per home, which would include photography AND video. The videos were relatively simple, just pans around the major rooms of the house and some wide shots of the outside and grounds. Pictures would have been standard realty shots.

Looking at my current situation (read: hate my job) I am strongly thinking of looking back at this again. For that type of money along with my other video projects, does this sound worth it? I estimate it would take maybe an hour or two per home. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks for starting this thread Mike.

Mike Barber · August 31st, 2006, 08:19 AM

Perhaps we could coax my friend Mick to post his experiences here... Mick, ya reading this? ;-)

Mike Barber · August 31st, 2006, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Oveson

The videos were relatively simple, just pans around the major rooms of the house and some wide shots of the outside and grounds.

[snip]

I estimate it would take maybe an hour or two per home. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I haven't seen many examples of realty videography, does that describe the basic conventions/expectations of a would-be client? Are manual tripod pans considered acceptable, or is a motor-driven (read: expensive) pan expected?

Meryem Ersoz · August 31st, 2006, 09:05 AM

ditto what mike said. the point of the boards is to share this discussion.

i'm completing my first ever real estate job. i was hired originally by the corporate owner to do a short doc about our town, for a separate, non-sales project. then he pointed me towards a realtor, to do a "quick" video job on an expensive estate.

too much work for too little cash. and a "want-everything-pay-for-nothing" mentality. people who work on commissions are not willing to part with their commission, especially in advance of the sale.

i suppose i would do a real estate job again, but only for an hourly wage. i'd never bid one of those jobs again. what is supposed to only take xx hours takes at least twice as long...expect to either keep a tight lid on the hours or expect to spend more hours than they are willing to pay for....they expect videography to take the same amount of time as photography, and don't understand that it doesn't....

i am curious to see who is doing this successfully. how are you making this worth your time? i would like to learn from someone who has been through it more than once....

Mike Barber · August 31st, 2006, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meryem Ersoz

i'm completing my first ever real estate job. i was hired originally by the corporate owner to do a short doc about our town, for a separate, non-sales project. then he pointed me towards a realtor, to do a "quick" video job on an expensive estate.

too much work for too little cash. and a "want-everything-pay-for-nothing" mentality. people who work on commissions are not willing to part with their commission, especially in advance of the sale.

i suppose i would do a real estate job again, but only for an hourly wage. i'd never bid one of those jobs again. what is supposed to only take xx hours takes at least twice as long...expect to either keep a tight lid on the hours or expect to spend more hours than they are willing to pay for....they expect videography to take the same amount of time as photography, and don't understand that it doesn't....

What was the process for you? Did you go about it as Mike (Oveson -- too many Mike's in here already!) desrcibed? How large was the property? How long would you say you spent shooting the whole thing? Are you doing anything fancy with the editing, or just plain panning cuts with cross-fade transitions?

Mike Oveson · August 31st, 2006, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

I haven't seen many examples of realty videography, does that describe the basic conventions/expectations of a would-be client? Are manual tripod pans considered acceptable, or is a motor-driven (read: expensive) pan expected?

Well, that's what this realty company wanted. They were a fairly large office, something like 80 realtors. Each individual realtor was to pay me the $50 per property that I did. The demo that they showed me from another website was very basic. Just some pans across the rooms, some outside shots, anything motion that helped sell the home (fountains, etc). The only difference I can tell between realty video and photo is that you don't have to move the video yourself. They have those VR type setups on most realty sites where you can pan around an image (usually a stitched image) of a room and get an idea of how the house is. But with video you just sit back and relax. If I were to do this I would just do the basic pans, maybe a rack focus here and there if I could find interesting things to focus on, things like that. Something that wouldn't take me more than an hour to film and less than 30 minutes to cut. The nice thing about it is that I would just ftp it straight to their site from home. The demo I saw seemed to have pans done by hand. Motor driven pans are easy too. You can get a Bescor motorized head for about $130. I actually have one that I thought I might use for this. It might be a bit fast though. It's been a while since I've used it.

I do agree with Meryem though, in that many realtors do not want to part with any of their commission. And if I may get on my soapbox for a moment, realtors are rather overpaid for what they do. Push a few forms around, make a few phone calls, make many thousand dollars per transaction. Sad. But, getting down off the soapbox, this could be a better time to get into this sort of work. The market appears to be slowing down again and people are going to have to work harder to sell their homes. In the past year it has been a seller's market. I have a friend that does real estate photography and half of the time the home is sold before he even gets a chance to shoot it. And this happens many times within 24 hours of the home going up for sale. It's just crazy. So, it's a risk. But the demand may go up as people have to do more to sell their places.

Meryem Ersoz · August 31st, 2006, 09:38 AM

to answer your question, i expected it to be the basic thing. show some pretty scenics, pan across a few rooms. not a big deal at all. but the actual edited piece is better looking than the house itself....has some some compositing and effects. and the realtor wanted someone else's photographic stills included, so the whole thing had to be color-corrected to get different bits shot at different times to match. as i said, the only condition i would do this again would be hourly, no bid. if the situation was as mike oveson describes it, a few pans and a few scenics thrown together on a linear timeline, this would have been pretty easy. but even at $50 per house, it takes a minimum of an hour to shoot and i would say at least an hour and a half to capture and edit a 2-3 minute video. then there is compression and output. so suddenly your $50 is working out to be around $10-15 an hour at best....great if you're a kid looking for a little experience and going to school at the same time. a little better than work-study. but a complete rip-off if you have an established biz and it takes time away from making any actual money.....

Mike Barber · August 31st, 2006, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Oveson

If I were to do this I would just do the basic pans, maybe a rack focus here and there if I could find interesting things to focus on, things like that. Something that wouldn't take me more than an hour to film and less than 30 minutes to cut. The nice thing about it is that I would just ftp it straight to their site from home. The demo I saw seemed to have pans done by hand. Motor driven pans are easy too. You can get a Bescor motorized head for about $130. I actually have one that I thought I might use for this. It might be a bit fast though. It's been a while since I've used it.

That sounds pretty much how I pictured things... shoot some pans of the main rooms, and some shots of the outdoors, edit it down to a few clips with some quick X-fade transitions, render/compress to QuickTime, and fini!

Is there anything i am missing from this equation?

Mike Oveson · August 31st, 2006, 10:49 AM

Clients? =)

My question now is how would you obtain clients? The way I got into a discussion over this with the realty firm I mentioned earlier was that I applied for a job with them as an executive secretary and somehow I got talking about video and such with their web designer. Next thing I knew they were asking me to do this for them. A real fluke event, I'd say.

So, how would you get clients? Just start calling realty companies and offering your services? There are a few established places out there that JUST do realty video. So what makes any of us special? Any thoughts?

August 30th, 2006, 09:04 AM	#1
Mike Barber Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Toronto ON Canada Posts: 731	Any Real-Estate Videographers? (OT?) Probably Off-Topic for this forum, but wasn't sure where else to post it (I will let the, er, wisdom of the moderators decide :wink:) Does anyone here have any experience in doing property videography for realtors? I'm curious to know what conventions there may be in this field, and how to learn more about getting into offering this kind of service. __________________ Mike Barber "I'm laughing to stop myself from screaming."

August 30th, 2006, 09:19 PM	#2
Waldemar Winkler Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Durango, Colorado, USA Posts: 711	Yes. Real estate work is a significant part of my work. Send me a PM. I'll share my experiences. __________________ Waldemar

August 31st, 2006, 08:19 AM	#8
Mike Barber Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Toronto ON Canada Posts: 731	Perhaps we could coax my friend Mick to post his experiences here... Mick, ya reading this? ;-) __________________ Mike Barber "I'm laughing to stop myself from screaming."

August 31st, 2006, 04:13 AM	#4
Janice DeMille Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nebo, NC Posts: 111	Waldemar could you contact me also? I am very interested in learning more about Real Estate Videography. thanks

August 31st, 2006, 06:48 AM	#5
Ron Ball New Boot Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Adrian, MI Posts: 14	Can y'all copy me on this information? I, too, would like to explore opportunities to expand my exposure/business. Thanks

August 31st, 2006, 08:06 AM	#7
Mike Oveson Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ogden, UT Posts: 349	I had a company ask me to do this but I turned them down because I was moving. They wanted to pay me $50 per home, which would include photography AND video. The videos were relatively simple, just pans around the major rooms of the house and some wide shots of the outside and grounds. Pictures would have been standard realty shots. Looking at my current situation (read: hate my job) I am strongly thinking of looking back at this again. For that type of money along with my other video projects, does this sound worth it? I estimate it would take maybe an hour or two per home. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks for starting this thread Mike.

August 31st, 2006, 09:05 AM	#10
Meryem Ersoz Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Boulder, CO Posts: 3,015	ditto what mike said. the point of the boards is to share this discussion. i'm completing my first ever real estate job. i was hired originally by the corporate owner to do a short doc about our town, for a separate, non-sales project. then he pointed me towards a realtor, to do a "quick" video job on an expensive estate. too much work for too little cash. and a "want-everything-pay-for-nothing" mentality. people who work on commissions are not willing to part with their commission, especially in advance of the sale. i suppose i would do a real estate job again, but only for an hourly wage. i'd never bid one of those jobs again. what is supposed to only take xx hours takes at least twice as long...expect to either keep a tight lid on the hours or expect to spend more hours than they are willing to pay for....they expect videography to take the same amount of time as photography, and don't understand that it doesn't.... i am curious to see who is doing this successfully. how are you making this worth your time? i would like to learn from someone who has been through it more than once....

August 31st, 2006, 09:38 AM	#13
Meryem Ersoz Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Boulder, CO Posts: 3,015	to answer your question, i expected it to be the basic thing. show some pretty scenics, pan across a few rooms. not a big deal at all. but the actual edited piece is better looking than the house itself....has some some compositing and effects. and the realtor wanted someone else's photographic stills included, so the whole thing had to be color-corrected to get different bits shot at different times to match. as i said, the only condition i would do this again would be hourly, no bid. if the situation was as mike oveson describes it, a few pans and a few scenics thrown together on a linear timeline, this would have been pretty easy. but even at $50 per house, it takes a minimum of an hour to shoot and i would say at least an hour and a half to capture and edit a 2-3 minute video. then there is compression and output. so suddenly your $50 is working out to be around $10-15 an hour at best....great if you're a kid looking for a little experience and going to school at the same time. a little better than work-study. but a complete rip-off if you have an established biz and it takes time away from making any actual money.....

August 31st, 2006, 10:49 AM	#15
Mike Oveson Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ogden, UT Posts: 349	Clients? =) My question now is how would you obtain clients? The way I got into a discussion over this with the realty firm I mentioned earlier was that I applied for a job with them as an executive secretary and somehow I got talking about video and such with their web designer. Next thing I knew they were asking me to do this for them. A real fluke event, I'd say. So, how would you get clients? Just start calling realty companies and offering your services? There are a few established places out there that JUST do realty video. So what makes any of us special? Any thoughts?