I am doing a post to see if there are any photographers that might be intrested in taking photos for my company in your local market.  Average pay would be 35.00 to 50.00 per home.  Would need images to be in 2 or 3 shoot fisheye format.  Any body intrested, please send email and let us know what city you are in.

Thank you

My Virtual Agents

We are in Fort Worth, Texas.  We don't do real estate - Sorry

Dave

I already tired this. Sorry to say but it doesn't work in your price range.

I am gonna be brutally honest here so forgive me.

Any person smart enough to use a camera and figure out how to shoot the images correctly is going to have a hard time working for $35 - $50 per shoot (drive time. gas expense, camera expense, and shoot time) If you find a newbie who wants to learn and you train them you can get away with those rates for a while. But as soon as they fig out what is going on they will wind up competing agianst you.

If you take someone like myself or Dave who know what the heck we are doing there ain't no way in hell you going to get me to do a shoot For 50 bucks. I won't even do one for a hundred bucks, not even for $200.

My minimum price for a real estate client is $500 dollars. I have a shoot tommorow  for that and one on Friday for $1500. I am not kidding you. I tell them right up front abou the price. They have a heart attack and say no thanks. Well then they come a callen when they get tired of the low end  crap that the cheap guys are putting out. I am not talking about you!!! It's the same competitors in my market as in yours.

I know you are in a very competive market and prices are low. I starved for a few years doing that but I got fed up with it. The only way you are going to get your prices up is to charge more and deliver a better product than the other guys.

Ipox tried what you are suggesting and they are not in business anymore. Remember the early days where it was $50 in keys and they set the rate at $100 in all their marketing campaigns. So you get $50 bucks for shooting and post processing. I was working for about 10 bucks an hour. Thas a big NEGATIVE ghost rider. LOL.

TRUST me. You need to target another market. You are going to work yourself to death just "making a living" with these cheap a** real estate agents. Look -- they get $3,600 bucks on a $100,000 sale. That means they get $18,000 for a half million dollar listing. And they are paying you a measly $100 bucks for someting that is very likly to sell the listing and that the seller expects to have done and the buyer expects to see.

Cmon use your head. They are taking advantage of the price that was set by Ipox. This price range is rediclulous. It is just stupid.

Here is someting interesting. Call up any photographer in the phone book and ask how much it would cost for say 20 stills that will be used in print ads and possibly a trifod brochure plus use on your website. This will cost at least $250 at  the very minimum and probably be in the $500 range if not more.

So why why why would you make 4 good panos for a measly $100 bucks????

I am telling you. Find the Top Producers who know how to sell realestate and can get the big listings. It will take a little time to bring them around but it can be done.

As long as you charge a $100 bucks that all you are ever going to make.

Gen. Lee

Was that HOT or What ??  Absolutly true !    If you sell your self at the low end...  then thats what you will get $$

Dave

I would charge One Milliiiooonn dollars!

ps. wheres smooth???

he must be down under!  

I do agree with everybody how has left comments on this subject.  But my question is how does companies like www.circlepix.com or www.obeo.com hire photographers to go out and take these photos.  I had checked with these companies before I started my business and they pay 35.00 per house.  There must be people taking the photos in these big cities, because if you search Realtor.com, you see these companies all over the USA.  Trust, if I knew a way to get more for my services, I would. 

I try to look at it this way.

I did a tour today that I got paid 125.00 for.

8 scenes and 30 Stills.

It took me 1 hour to take the photos at the house

1 1/2 hour to put the tour together.

At the most, I will have 3 hours work in this one tour.

Break that down, it is almost 42.00 an hour.

Of course, not all of my tours are 125.00.  I average 100.00 on most tours.

Try to understand, I use to be a corporate chef for a restaurant here in Charlotte.  Worked 80-90 a week.  Break that down, sometimes I was lucky to make 10.00 an hour.  That is what a salary job will do to you!

I am hoping after I get my quality to being perfect and get my customer base built, then I can increase my price a little. 

Again, thanks for all the input.  To some it all up! Real Estate Agents are cheap ***sss

Heck, my brother owns a real estate agency and it is like pulling teeth just to get his agents to do a virtual tour.

I truly believe the company www.visualtours.com is what has driven the price down and these are not even real virtual tours.

I have thought about switching to the one shoot lens which is what CirclePix uses, but honestly, I just do not like those photos and I really like the ability to pan up and down.

Thanks again and best of luck to all!!!

Don't get the wrong idea here. Lots of people do $100 tours. I was just trying to fire you up a bit and get off to a good start.

What you are doing is just fine. Keep at it.

The "windows" will be your friend....see out them and you will see the light

Gen. Lee

what windows lee?

Being new to all this, I actually answered an ad and drove 3 hours to an interview (another company), thinking it might be a way for me to get some experience. When I got there, he offered $22/house which meant 4 scenes and 6 stills. I asked about compensation for travel and he told me that since I am an independant contractor, that I would be responsible for my own expenses. The territory he showed me was most of Northern NJ plus some Eastern Pensylvania. Yeah, like I'm gonna travel 2 hours to make $22.00! Who are these nut cases taking pictures for these guys?

Nothing against you, myvirtualagents, but for $100, you can only make money doing it yourself, and only if you rush through the shoot, and only if you stay very local.

The only reason why Real Estate agents won't pay more is because there are people who will do this work for peanuts. This has caused this service to be a commodity. And like any other commodity (gas, sugar, etc.), the only factor is price. I don't want to sell a commodity. I want to sell a service.