New Poll: How Much Do you Make A Year As A Real Estate Photographer?
March 7th, 2008
In the discussion of the post this week on the subject of What to charge as a real estate photographer some readers requested that I do a poll on what real estate photographers make. As usual the poll is on the left hand side-bar.I’m finding these polls to be very insightful into many aspects of the interests and composition of the PFRE blog readership. The ability to do these polls was one of my major motivations for moving off of wordpress.com where PFRE used to be hosted because at wordpress.com you can’t put javascript in a side-bar widget and the Polldaddy polls require javascript.To see the results of past polls click on the “poll results” button just above the header image.If anyone has a poll that you’d like to see let me know, otherwise I’ll keep thinking of poll questions.
11 Responses to “New Poll: How Much Do you Make A Year As A Real Estate Photographer?”
Real Estate - Information on Real Estate » New Poll: How Much Do you Make A Year As A Real Estate Photographer? March 7th, 2008 at 7:47 pm #
[...] Poll: How Much Do you Make A Year As A Real Estate Photographer? Michael Price wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIn the discussion of the post this [...]
Larry Gasinski March 8th, 2008 at 11:10 am #
I just started, so I don’t have a number for annual income yet. I’ll be very interested to see the results of the poll!
Scott Pruett March 8th, 2008 at 11:32 am #
to anyone: without revealing details of what you make (unless you want), how does your income relate to the cost of living in your area?
Drew King March 9th, 2008 at 4:45 am #
Personally it is more “Outgo” than “Income” here in NY
Chad Jones March 9th, 2008 at 10:48 am #
Photography is not all i do for the company I work for. I also do technology training classes on corporate applications that we offer to all of our agents. I serve as the CCNA and on site back office system administrator for the 8 office network we have. My background is back office system administration. I fell into photography by chance and have liked the change in scenery (no pun intended.).
I have 100% health, company car, gas is comped, car insurance and maintenance is covered too, expense account and i get bonuses for extra options I sell with my photo services.
People enjoy working with me and I have built a good relationship with all of the top listing agents and brokers in my grasp. I get 2-3 new agents as clients per week on average.
I am working on building my testimony and referral business by using linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/fivedollarones
jeff March 11th, 2008 at 9:17 am #
I’d also be curious to see what % of readers are photographers as their primary profession. I think a large number of us have a primary job, but we’re hoping to develop photography more on the side.
larry March 11th, 2008 at 10:10 am #
@jeff,
Great idea. I’ll do that poll next.
Toronto realtor March 13th, 2008 at 6:47 am #
An interesting insight in this topic. I work for a real estate company in Canada, and a real estate photografy has come through some changes in here. It started with our own poll on our sell campaigns. The photography came out as an very important player, afterall seeing a photo is client’s “first virtual visit” of the proprety. I was lobbying for cooperation with professionals, as I observed better results using their images. You can chech them on Toronto real estate sites. I can use some usefull observations from professionals.
Neville March 14th, 2008 at 6:17 pm #
This is a very interesting question with a very interesting answer.
It really does appear that most Real Estate Photographers earn little or no income and treat it as either a hobby or “An Interest”.
The simple answer is –
Purchase a Open2view Franchise and create a full time position enjoying an income of the top 11% of polled answers.
Speaking on a personal basis – I have been involved with Open2view.com (NZ) since 2000 providing a top service that the customer wants and repeatly asks for and have made a good income ever since doing what I love.
(See previous blog for Open2view discussion)
Anonymous March 15th, 2008 at 6:17 am #
Please forgive the anonymous post. I made 62K last year. That is less than half of what it costs to run our household in a very expensive region of the USA. We don’t take vacations, I shop at Target and Old Navy, etc. I have been doing this for four years. The year before last I made $30K so you can see that the word of mouth and referrals kicked in big time in the fourth year. I think this is typical of many small busineses. I do about 13 shoots a week as well as several property websites. I charge less than $100 for the first hour per shoot. I do no marketing or advertising. I’m thinking of getting my real estate license. I hope this information is helpful to the people just starting out.
Bryan March 24th, 2008 at 9:00 pm #
I had spent years as an action/animal photographer and 2 yrs ago Sotheby’s Intl Realty asked me to do all their photography and marketing. Real Estate is down here and I am busier than ever. Sotheby’s is about images and life style. Oh by the way I just got my real estate license–can’t be too many realtors/professional photographers–a picture is really worth a thousand words.