How much money can you make as a real estate photographer?
The amount of money you can make as a real estate photographer depends on
- The quality of the service you provide
- The types of property
- The market climate
- Clients
- Competition
- Timing
- How many shoots
- How long a shoot takes
- Location
- The quality of your photography
- Your reputation
- Your experience
- Your portfolio
- Your qualifications
- Your website
- Your online presence
- Your workflows
OK – there is plenty to get stuck into here.
I do not have a magic number for you, if only it were that easy. But I can give you things to think about which will help you take a view on how much you need to charge per shoot.
If I could tell you a magic figure, give you that number that will make everything Ok then I would but it is just not that simple – sorry.
Who am I?
I am Rick McEvoy, an architectural, real estate and construction photographer based here in the UK. I specialise in photographing buildings, and not a great deal more!
I am an Associate in the British Institute of Photography (ABIPP), and also a Chartered Builder (MCIOB).
I am also the creator of the Photography Explained Podcast, and have a number of other websites all about photography, travel, and travel photography.
I do not do weddings, christenings, family portraits, pets. None of that stuff. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just not for me.
Let’s go through these things one by one.
The quality of the service you provide
I have put this first for a reason.
You have to provide a great service. Anyone in theory can take photos of a building, but not everyone can do that and provide a great service.
If you give your clients a rubbish service guess what – you will not work for them again.
If you give your clients a great service – they will work with you again.
Let’s not overthink this.
If you provide a rubbish service you lose a client and have to find a new one. And it is much easier working for people who already know you than having to start from scratch every time.
The types of property
In very broad terms, the higher the value of the property, the more you are potentially able to charge. Sure there is more work to do, and to be honest more pressure, but higher end properties can pay more. And this is where I am looking to do more work.
You can also potentially earn more photographing commercial properties than you can residential properties, as the values and rentals are higher and you are working in a commercial environment.
The market climate
In a strong market you can potentially charge more than you can in a depressed market. This is the case for most areas of commerce, and also why it is important to have more than one income stream.
Don’t put all your eggs I one basket, I recommend that you have more than erm one basket. More on that at the end when I tell you what I do.
Clients
You have to negotiate a rate with each client that you are trying to work with. If you ask them how much they can pay this is a great start – it might be more than you were going to ask for so try this first and you might strike up some great deals.
And once you have done this with your first client you can use this information in negotiations with other clients.
I know that some photographers find this awkward at first, but there is no need to feel like this when talking about money. Real estate agents do this all the time don’t forget, and the fee you are going to charge is just one of a long list of things to be sorted.
Competition
The higher the competition the harder it is. The less the competition the easier it is. And you might find that there are competitors who are willing to work for virtually nothing.
I have been there, and having asked for a perfectly reasonable fee been massively undercut.
I now have a minimum fee that I will work for, which has got rid of all those people wanting a cheap job. I am not in that market. It is a race to the bottom that I do not recommend you join.
That is why you need to better than everyone else.
Timing
When are the photos needed? If it is a tomorrow job, an urgent rush job, ask what the fee is as you might be able to earn more.
I once had a job where the photos were needed before 8am the morning after the afternoon shoot. I was fine producing the images so quickly, but I did charge for the privilege. The client was fine paying that, but also of course would have been fine if I had not asked for additional fee.
Don’t ask and you don’t get.
How many shoots?
How many shoots can you do in a week, month, year?
If you are charging say £100 per shoot, and doing 2 shoots a week, then your annual income will be £9,400 (47 weeks x £100 x 2). Is that enough to live off?
If you are doing one shoot per working day and charging £250 then your annual income would be £58,750 (47 weeks x £250 x 5).
This is the starting point from which you will have to come up with your own numbers. You have to work this out for yourself, and once you have a target then you have to get the work in and get it done!
But let me tell you, getting 5 shoots a week, every week is tough to secure.
How long a shoot takes
1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours – this makes a massive difference to how much you are actually earning.
I aim to have an average residential property photographed in hopefully less than 1 hour, and the longest real estate shoot I did took me 4 hours. It was a great country residence and I was loving it so I didn’t really mind but that is not the point really.
This is business – time is money.
Location
You have to get there, and get back, and that takes time. Start local and see where that takes you before looking further afield.
I don’t recommend doing a job 2 hours away and charging £50 for it!
The quality of your photography
The quality of your photos will have an influence on how much you can earn. There is a basic professional standard which is expected of every photographer charging money for photography. This is the starting point.
But to charge more you need to up your game, have superior quality images and maybe even your own look.
I do things for my architectural photography work that have given me my own look. I use these things on higher end real estate photography, as they are (just) paying me enough for me to spend a bit more time doing my thing in Lightroom.
Be better than everyone else and opportunities will present themselves trust me.
Your reputation
Again, if no one knows who you are that is one thing, but if you are well known and have a great reputation for providing great photos and a great service you will have the potential to charge more, and also to secure more lucrative work.
You have some work to do to raise your profile to take your business to the next level.
Your experience
Never done this before? Been doing this for 20 years? Then you might be able to charge more, but let us not forget that all agents will have a maximum budget for photography.
Your portfolio
If you have a great real estate photography portfolio then you can demonstrate to potential clients just how great you are. If you do not how do they know you can deliver?
I am going to create a new real estate photography portfolio in a future post, telling you how I did it and what I actually did with it!
Here are the portfolios that I have on my website at the moment
As you will see there are 12 photos in each portfolio, that is all.
Your qualifications
I am an Associate in the British Institute of Professional Photography. Does this help me with real estate photography? Not really, but it does when people are searching listings such as the BIPP, normally for higher end work.
And it is proof that I can work to a professional standard.
Your website
Your website is your online shop. This is probably the way that most people will find you, so it needs to give the right message straight away.
I have created my own website, and made it all about photographing buildings for clients, and also helping photographers photograph buildings.
And looking at my website I was not happy that my portfolios were not slap bang in your face so that is a job I will attend to after I have written this post.
You need a website, and you need to work at it to get yourself found. Definitely one for another post.
But a website that works will attract more business which will help you make more money.
Your online presence
Not just your website, but think about other places such as business listings and social media. Again, get these things right and you are broadening the base of business opportunities and how much money you can earn.
Your workflows – very important
You have to have efficient, effective, professional workflows for
- Getting business
- Preparing for a shoot
- Taking the photos
- Processing the photos
- Issuing the photos
These are the five broad steps, and in a future post I am going to produce workflows for each of these, well certainly the middle three. The first and last I have just thought of.
What do I do – taking photos
Well I make money from a variety of sources. Real estate photography is one of them. I also shoot commercially architectural photography, and also construction photography.
I do not do any other commercial photography work
What do I do – websites
I have a number of websites. These are they
These are in different stages of their evolution, and are contributing to my income through adverts on the websites, and also getting business in of course!
What do I do – other stuff?
I have a number of affiliate partners, products, goods, and services that I use. I promote their products on my websites in return for commission if people click on one of my links and buy something.
I am also building email lists, a couple of You Tube channels and some other stuff. I am also working on products that I can sell.
These things all work together and add to my real estate photography income.
Why all this stuff?
In my opinion it is important to have more than one income stream. If you only have one income stream and that market crashes what do you do?
I am trying to build a business with things that earn money in the background, a passive income, to add to my photography work.
How much do I make?
Well I am not able to tell you how much I charge my clients I am afraid, as that is commercial in confidence. I tell you everything I know, but this is one thing that I am not able to share with you. Sorry.
Related reading
If you want to know more about real estate photography check out my real estate photography page.
If you want to know more about me, and for everything else just head over to my Start Here page.
Related viewing
Yes you can even watch a video I recorded about this blog post which is nice – check it out here on my You Tube channel.
Photography Explained Podcast
Yes I have my own podcast, the Photography Explained Podcast, which is very good, even if I do say so myself! Photography things explained in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details.
OK – I am done here.
I hope that you found this post helpful and you now know what you need to think about when planning out making a living from real estate photography.
See you on the next post
Please, any questions get in touch via my website. Cheers from me Rick
