For whatever reason, I think I am committed (in my mind) to making a go of a real estate photography business. I have been mulling it over for a few months, off and on. Been really pondering it the last couple of days. I could go on and on about the reasons why, but I just know it is something that I feel motivated to do. So now I need to start figuring out how to go about doing this. This blog will still be written on a few different subjects, but there might be more posts about starting this business than other subjects. The beauty of this medium is that you don’t have to read every one of them, just the ones that interest you.
So first things first. A checklist of what needs to be done:
- Order the Photography for Real Estate ebook
- Decide on the extent of services I wish to offer
- Develop a business plan, outlining financial goals (will help in setting pricing)
- Order some off-camera flash triggers
- Watch CraigsList for some inexpensive additional flashes
- Do some practice shoots
- Prepare marketing materials
- Network with realtors
- Get clients
- Make a fortune
OK, so maybe the last one is a bit ambitious. But there has to be some goal. I don’t want to do this to lose money, which it sounds like some people are (or at least not getting what their time is worth) . Well, we’ll see how this pans out…
You may want to try and connect with the Board of Realtors in your area. Craig is a real estate appraiser in Ohio and he uses a service called MLS that provides photos of the subject and comparative houses. At times, when they don’t have photos, he has to go out and take them which is a major pain in the rear.