A thread for real estate, architectural, and interior design photography

With the number of posts on this thread, it seems like there should be a separate forum for real estate/architecture. When I began to expand into real estate, I looked here and was surprised (and disappointed) that there was not a dedicated forum - especially given some of the more specialized (and rather lightly viewed) fora for other fields.

How about it, mods. This thread is too long to be of any use and real estate is a growing photographic specialty.

i agree, there should also be a food section

Hey guys, I need your help. I've been shooting RE stuff & virtual tours for about 6 years now.....as a side biz. I need to find some new Mac software to create the slide shows on. The one I'm using now was made for weddings (Showit Web 2.6). It works great for me, I create the tour, pick the music and dump the whole folder into my website....grab the link and it's done. However, it doesn't use flash and I cant convert to YouTube. As you can imagine there's a want for that now.

Any Ideas? I can do a YouTube video from lightroom but it seems to take to long.

Every time I search for this all that comes up is stuff that makes pano's.....not virtual tours.

Here's my tour directory so you get a idea what I'm doing now-

http://thepixelplayer.​com/unbranded/

Don't do it yourself. Look at TourBuzz. It's made for real estate, affordable, and has specific posting features for your clients. It will do your work for you and the agent's work for them. Here's a link to their sample tour on my website. This is the branded version but you also get unbranded. My real estate website is here.

Hope that helps.

Interior design photography is not my thing at all, and I only have a 17-40 on a 1D mkIV, but just to join the thread, snaps of my home here in the UK

So I have done a couple real estate shoots recently. My last one was of a medical center (Dialysis treatment center). Got some really nice shots. Not the quality we see here on this thread but good enough for the customer.

So I got an email 2 weeks ago to go shoot this apartment complex in Columbus, GA. First they tell me that they will have a check in the office and I can come and pick it up the day I do the shoot. Now they tell me they can't do that. Company policy prevents them from writing checks without an invoice. I said if I gave her an invoice today and went and took the photos today could they mail me the check this week? She replied back that it doesn't work that way either. She said she could only submit the request and wait for accounting to pay it when they see fit according to the status of the accounts... RED FLAG there... Then she says I might not see a check for 60 - 120 days... Another HUGE RED Flag!!!

Is this the norm or is this company trying to feed me a line. It sounds like they may never pay me if I decided to do this (I probably wont).

CameraMan wrote in post #16962897
So I have done a couple real estate shoots recently. My last one was of a medical center (Dialysis treatment center). Got some really nice shots. Not the quality we see here on this thread but good enough for the customer.

So I got an email 2 weeks ago to go shoot this apartment complex in Columbus, GA. First they tell me that they will have a check in the office and I can come and pick it up the day I do the shoot. Now they tell me they can't do that. Company policy prevents them from writing checks without an invoice. I said if I gave her an invoice today and went and took the photos today could they mail me the check this week? She replied back that it doesn't work that way either. She said she could only submit the request and wait for accounting to pay it when they see fit according to the status of the accounts... RED FLAG there... Then she says I might not see a check for 60 - 120 days... Another HUGE RED Flag!!!

Is this the norm or is this company trying to feed me a line. It sounds like they may never pay me if I decided to do this (I probably wont).

That can be the norm for some businesses, but normally it would be net 30 at most.

I would just simply do the shoot, invoice them and upon payment they will receive the photos. Simple as that.

I was thinking that too. I would have photos to show other prospective clients even if I don't get paid for this one. I might have to do a contract with this one as well. Didn't need one with the last 2 that I did.

I just got an email from them and they said they need the photos now and would have to get a Real Estate Photography company to do this... Isn't that going to cost them a lot of money to do that? I don't understand how that would work in their favor...

CameraMan wrote in post #16963284
Isn't that going to cost them a lot of money to do that? I don't understand how that would work in their favor...

Sounds like you are undervaluing your services and not charging enough. It should not cost them 'a lot' more money to go with another company as compared to you.

CameraMan wrote in post #16963284
I just got an email from them and they said they need the photos now and would have to get a Real Estate Photography company to do this... Isn't that going to cost them a lot of money to do that? I don't understand how that would work in their favor...

If they want the photos BEFORE they make payment, then they are extremmely unprofressional and I would walk away and let them pay for another company.

Red flags everywhere here, not worth your time, unless you want it for your portfolio and can accept the loss IMHO.

Hinson wrote in post #16963392
Sounds like you are undervaluing your services and not charging enough. It should not cost them 'a lot' more money to go with another company as compared to you.

I thought I might be undervaluing my services. I have only done two of these types of shoots. I was charging $200 to do probably about 2 hours worth of photography and then a hour or so of processing. But from what I've seen locally the "Real Estate Photographers" are charging about the same for the same amount of time.

They wanted me, they had me setup to go and get the photos. They were going to have a check in the office for me but because of company policy they can't pay without an invoice. I offered to email her and bring a copy of an invoice with me when I picked up the check and that's when the Red flags started popping up. Can't pay that day, won't be able to pay 60 - 120 days after invoice, need photos right away... Doesn't sound like they thought things through.

We'll see what they do. If a local "Real Estate Photographer" wants payment right away and they are charging $300 - $600 for the shoot then they might find a way to pay me a little quicker.