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How Much to Charge for Real Estate Video

In: 
Published: 02/11/2022

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Creating real estate videos is one of the most popular services you can offer. Real estate videography serves as virtual tours to help realtors increase sales by exhibiting properties, listings, homes, and neighborhoods.

How Much to Charge for Real Estate Video

The average price of real estate photography and videography video production can range between $1,000 to $10,000 per finished minute. However, the price range for videography is something that you can adjust depending on the job requirements of your own video production. 

A fair price for real estate photography and videography must be based on the costs of doing business, your local market, and the quality of your work. The real estate videography pricing also depends on the location, duration, tasks, as well as complexity of pre-production and post-production.

What Does Real Estate Videography Entail?

Real estate videography is about capturing the exterior and interior videos of the natural look of a real estate property. Although many think real estate videography is all about recording real estate property videos, it also incorporates professional post-processing. 

The ease of shooting the videos depends on whether the real estate agents are shooting aerial footage or a walk-through. Typically, preparing the real estate video for publication might take several days and one hour or two to shoot. In fact, editing is the main determinant of real estate videography pricing. 

Two men shooting house interior

For a walk-through shooting, the real estate agent walks through the property shooting the videos. The broker can even shoot outstanding photos and stitch them together to make a 3D tour. On the other hand, aerial footage incorporates drone videotape and aerial photography.

Factors That Influence Real Estate Virtual Tour Cost

Real estate video production can be simple footage or complex production. Much like in any other kind of videography business, each real estate agent is different, so the real estate videography pricing depends on several factors.

Know that these are only ballpark price figures, and real estate agents may want to change the hourly rate or overall costs depending on their experience and equipment. 

Scriptwriting

Scriptwriting is simply creating the main concept of your real estate videography in written form. It helps in making your video more precise and to the point. A script helps produce content that matches the property you intend to sell and captures the attention of the audience you intend to reach. 

Although scriptwriting is a part of the overall real estate videography pricing, it can be charged separately, especially if it’s not done by the real estate agents who are shooting the photos. The price range for professional scriptwriting is from $200 to $300.

Keep in mind that it is possible to capture the content without a script, especially if you are experienced. If the agency is on a tight budget or schedule, it is advisable to skip this step to save on your overall production budget. 

Camera Equipment

Regarding the camera gear, the real estate videography pricing will mainly depend on the quality of the camera and whether other accessories, such as tripods and flashlights, are needed. For instance, cameras that can perform well in low-light conditions and tripods with fluid heads that can capture smooth and stable recordings are costly to purchase and operate.

It also depends on the duration it will take to shoot the content. For example, if you are capturing the footage as a team, there are higher chances that you'll be paying your team members hourly rates. That means the more hours you capture the footage, the more money you will have to spend on your team members.

Typically, camera equipment is the first thing to consider in real estate videography pricing as it’s the primary gear that will determine the overall quality of the final content. In most cases, the price range for camera equipment for on-location or studio shooting is from $100 to $400 hourly rate.

Narrator/Voiceover

A narrator or a voice-over helps emphasize the main points in the recording as well as give some detailed information on the different features of the property you want to sell. Although narrators and voiceovers are not a must-have when producing your content, they can help make it unique and elevate it over your competitors. 

A good real estate agent narrator can make the property more understandable and the recording more engaging, standing out from that of your competitors. Remember that narrating is a skill on its own, and you might have to delegate the task to a professional narrator. 

Also, for the best narration and voiceover results, your content needs to have a script to which the narrator will be referring. That means if you want your content to have a narrator, you also need to hire a scriptwriter. In most cases, the pay for a professional narrator ranges from $400 per hour

Editing and Revisions

Preparing videos for publication is an essential step in video production and is important in real estate videography pricing. For a major production, there are chances that you will be capturing the audio separately and different footage views using different cameras.

As a result, the final content needs to be edited and blended together. In most cases, this will involve blending different sounds and footage from different cameras to create a single film. You may also need to customize the video to remove unwanted segments. 

Again, for a major production, you might have to concentrate on shooting the footage and delegate video processing jobs to someone else. Typically, this means you'll need to spend some finances on another team member. As a result, the prices for footage customization vary widely, ranging from $65 to $175 per hour.

Audio Files

Audio files are recorded sounds that you can playback. In videography, an audio file is one of the most crucial features to be aware of. High-end audio captures the attention of the buyers and ensures the message reaches home. In most cases, the real estate videography pricing of audio files is up to $1000

Drone Footage

The property's location is an important aspect that you don't want to miss out on when capturing real estate videos. Drone footage is a great way of capturing the aerial view of where the property you want to sell is located, giving the buyers an insight of the community around the property. 

Although the price range for aerial drone footage varies widely depending on the location of the property, the size of the house, and the type of the drone, it can range anywhere from $200 to $5,000 per day

Additional Special Effects 

If you want to make the listing fantastic and unique, you consider adding some special effects to the content. In most cases, adding special effects to a listing starts from $300 to $2000, depending on the extensiveness

Other expenses that you might encounter during production include:

Focus shot of black DSLR camera
  • Additional photos that needs to be included in the listing: $100 for basic shots and up to $1,500 for an extensive day package
  • Music licensing: The price range for licensing can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the artist
  • Video rendering: The prices for video rendering services can range from $75 for every 60 minutes
  • Travel: $1.25 per mile
  • Copyright release: Regardless of what is in the listing, the copyright release fees starts from $250  

The length of your content is one of the features that will help you determine the initial price. However, make sure to take into account the size of the home, equipment, labor for the shoot, and process of publication in the final cost.  

Is It Worth Investing in Real Estate Videography?

The aim of real estate photography and videography is to sell properties. Considering that the agents will be selling the properties listing using your content, demand for your services might rise, making it a worthwhile business in the long term. 

It is even better to invest in videography if you are a real estate agent and you want to sell properties without hiring a drone photographer or a real estate videographer. Mainly, it’s because you will be selling your videography skills as you sell the properties.

Before creating premium videos for a real estate listing, it is important to consider what the other real estate agents and competitors in your area post on their listing and what they do. This will help you get a better idea of the real estate video pricing, what type of real estate videography is best for listing and what content is best for your videography.

Can I Do Videography for Real Estate on My Own? 

It is possible to do most of the video work for your listing. In most cases, you'll be able to shoot decent real estate photos and videos with your tablet or smartphone. However, preparing them for publication can be challenging especially if you don't have the skills.

If you are a real estate agent and you want a major production, it’s advisable to hire professional real estate videographers for a major production. In most cases, professional real estate videographers will have high end cameras and drones as well as advanced video editing applications. 

The secret of saving money when doing real estate video pricing is to know when to do the recording on your own and when to hire a professional real estate videographer. For instance, if the shooting requires aerial or drone footage, it is more cost-effective to pay real estate videographers than to purchase a drone. 

Which Platform Should Agents Use to Publish Real Estate Videos?

Once you shoot and produce your videography, many real estate agents will need to publish the listing on a platform for them to reach the target buyers. There are two types of listing platforms preferred by many agents in the real estate industry:

  • Promotional listing platform
  • Evergreen listing platform

Promotional platforms involve social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. However, in a promotional platform, your photography content remains engaging for a short period of time and then loses its engagement. Typically, promotional platforms are not the best choice if you're not expecting to make sales sooner.

On the other hand, evergreen platforms ensure that your photography content remains fresh and relevant to the buyers for a long period of time past the publication date. These platforms include your YouTube channel or blog. If most real estate videographers start building their library through these platforms, their real estate business will ultimately become popular.

A real estate agent can utilize these two platforms at the same time by publishing photography content on the evergreen platform and then linking the same content on social media networks. For instance, real estate videographers can publish photography content on YouTube and link it to a Twitter account.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Should I Pay a Real Estate Videographer?

In most cases, you will need to pay a real estate videographer around $100 to $200 hourly. Is real estate videography worth it? Remember that the actual real estate videography pricing depends on the expertise of the real estate videographers, the camera gear and the video production software required, the size of the real estate property, and the current market real estate videography pricing. 

Who Needs Real Estate Footage?

Sellers are more likely to hire a professional videography team to get photos and footage of their homes. Agents and real estate professionals also require them for their real estate marketing needs. Similar to realtors, buyers want property videos because photos sometimes lack context, and they need a better way to see real estate listings they like.

Conclusion

Fair real estate videography pricing would depend on the difficulty of the video shoot, equipment, location, and the demands of the clients. Know what services to provide; a real estate videographer can make more money by creating a package that would benefit real estate agents and clients.

16 comments on “How Much to Charge for Real Estate Video”

  1. Video can be extremely time consuming in both shooting, editing and uploading. The single most important consideration is your TIME involved. If you're going to be hauling around and setting up jibs, cranes, tripods, lighting equipment, audio equipment, etc., your time spent in the home will be considerable. Hours. And Hours. Plus your travel time. Then add your transcoding time, your editing time. Add your uploading time. Add the time for creating a web page for your video.

    You need to establish your price FIRST. Determine what your particular market will bear cost-wise, then create a product that will fit into that price point, and STILL make you money. Don't create a product and THEN determine a fair price for it, because most often you will be either over charging and you'll have nearly no business.... or you'll be undercharging and you'd be better off flipping burgers....

    I keep my prices reasonable and affordable (for the top agents) because I cut corners on the video, and make no apologies for it. For regular clients (not in the real estate biz), I usually offer a preview, and usually one or two rounds of edits. VERY time consuming in every way. I also charge $500-$1000 to start for most of those projects, way out of the price range for most Realtors.

    Most of my real estate videos follow the same basic template. Look at my YouTube channel - there are almost 1,600 videos that all follow the same format. I just tell a customer... plug YOUR house into that formula, and that's essentially what your video will look like. Simple as that. They know exactly what they're getting. I do NO previews, offer NO edits. I also turn the video around next day (or in 48 hours when I'm super busy).

    If I make a mistake, I obviously will correct it. If the client makes a mistake or wants something changed, it's $100. (amazing how people want changes until they find out it will cost money - then those changes are not so important!). I shoot exteriors on a tripod at the same time I'm shooting stills. I shoot the interior on a Steadicam, which on an average sized house takes roughly 20 minutes. I'm "hauling and setting up" one camera, one tripod and a tiny Steadicam. Easy in, easy out.

    My time spent shooting is minimal. My time spent editing is minimal because I "shoot to edit". Everything is shot in the same order, so editing takes less than 30 minutes. I have four super fast computers here on my desk that crunch through this stuff pretty quickly and on busy days I transfer and transcode video on a laptop in my car as I'm driving to my appointments so everything is ready to go when I get back to edit. I have a super fast (15 Mbps upload) fiber internet connection, so it takes me 2-3 minutes to upload a full, 1080p, HD video to a website (I upload each video to about 6 different websites).

    It's super imperative that you create the PRODUCT for the predetermined PRICE, not vice-versa. Real estate is a price sensitive industry as we all know, so it's very easy to price yourself right out of business.

    The vast majority of my clients do stills AND video, and the average cost to the agent for that package on a typical, average house or condo is just about $500, or $100 less if the video is not narrated. When things are slow, I do 2-3 homes a day, when things are busy I do at least 5-6 a day and oftentimes even more. A few months ago I shot 32 houses on Martha's Vineyard in 3 days! (some very well orchestrated shoots started at dawn, working until dark).

    Obviously some proejcts, like http://youtu.be/IN1eA6zc_34 are charged considerably more and take considerably more time!

  2. Fred: thank you for sharing all that invaluable information about your business: I hear what you say about clients wanting to make changes! With stills I find I can move distracting items out of the shot and shoot one view across the room but for a walkthrough/ panning video you are really showing the entire property : fine for newbuilds/ showhomes but not great for homes with a lot of clutter! I have steered clear of offering 360 panoramas for this reason. When you show more of the house with a video you are opening up more variables/ ie opportunities for client complaints about "the children's toy under the sofa in the far left of the picture": with stills at least I have photoshop for cloning out unwanted reflections, debris I missed at the time. I think you are so right to establish a very standardised package for RE work otherwise projects can become ambitious and non-profitable productions. Clients have to realise that RE video work is not like a magazine shoot and I think need to cut us some slack when viewing the results: it needs to be sharp, clear and well-edited but I don't think at the price it can be held up to the same level of scrutiny that stills shots receive from most clients. If one is going to operate atall profitably at this level, then the ground rules need to be very clearly laid out. Thanks again for being so generous with your insights into this important area!

  3. I have found pricing for video to be very difficult but of course depends on the type of videos you produce. If you create a consistent product that comes from a tightly organized system then you can easily calculate your cost and have a chance to make the fastest profit. Most of my videos have scripts and brokers speaking on camera and I encourage creativity so the time, cost and quality can vary tremendously. I have only done between 50 to 60 of these videos and have tracked the amount of time required to shoot and edit under different circumstances. I still have a way to go on my pricing formulas but I can come pretty close on a fair 1/2 day rate and a full day rate if the broker agrees to to stay within a strict set of parameters like script length, # of times on camera, no second sites included.
    On a different note, the most price sensitive brokers are the ones who have not done a video and don't trust it yet. Once they have seen the positive response both through showings and additional listings that good videos can bring then price is less of an issue.

  4. Great topic & great advise from everyone. I have been a Realtor for 11 years and a Real Estate Photographer for 10 of those. I had also dabbled in Video initially and dropped it when standard photography started paying the bills. I had shot and edited several 20 minute Sports Vacation Features that took over 40 hours to produce. Fred's advice is key - you need to estimate your costs and level of detail/quality that you can offer at what the market will bear. Good luck with the video everyone!

  5. Fred:
    Thanks for all that great advice. From shooting video in the past I can definitely understand the importance in being realistic about the quality/price. Often times as a videographer you want to make masterpieces, but it's important to develop a formula that is profitable.

    I'm just getting into the business. I was wondering if anyone had tips on ways to find work? I assume most of the work begins by Networking with Realtors. But I'm looking for some ideas with that.

    Thanks!

  6. We offer three types of packages, depending on the quality and clients budget:

    1. Premium
    Includes cinema camera, high quality glass, arri lights, leds, stabilizer, slider and tripod

    2. Deluxe
    Cinema camera, high quality glass, no complementary lights, slider

    3. Basic
    Dslr camera, good glass, slider and tripod

  7. Hey! Great job. I haven't really gone back to my roots of photography and video for over a decade, but after getting into real estate early this year, thank you. It's so nice to see other's perspectives. We all need to realize it takes all the pieces to build this huge mega million reality we live in: from photography to videography, staghers, cleaners, title companies, mortgage brokers, etc. They all get paid in the end. People just seem to think the real estate agent makes bank; lol. I heart you all! I need to dig out my camera

  8. It's amazing how drastically pricing can vary for video even in the same market. As with anything, you really do get what you pay for. Some homemade videos really leave me wondering if the realtor actually thought it looked good...

    Wyatt Kern
    flybycreatives.com

  9. Definitely useful, even if clearly 10 years old and “published” this year (?). Thank you!

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