I was talking to a realtor this morning on this. All of them in my area do their own photos however, he was interested in the 'virtual tour' type photos which requires a special camera. I haven't checked it out but if anyone else has info or links, I'd appreciate it.
Doug
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prices....CHEAP! $200 better include it all, esp in this market. shoot to burn and thats it.
0-360.com i think for VT, mirrored cone shaped item that attaches to your lens. one exposure, you are basically photographing the reflection. software that comes with allows you to select the area on the cone and out puts it as a QT movie.
I have a real estate friend that asked me to look into doing this locally about two years ago.
I looked at 2 simple things, as anyone should do before starting a new business.
First, I looked at the cost of the software and equipment. At that time even, there was a vast array of setups with an equal range of prices. I found a lot of info just by googling the term "virtual tour".
Second I looked at the market. There are folks in franchise type situations doing this already and they had already messed up the pricing. I was told by my friend that the price for 2 virtual tour locations in the house AND hosting the tour on their own servers was less than $100.
When I compared the expense for everything (my time and effort, hosting fees and bandwidth) at the pricing that was out there already, I determined that it would take too long to recoup my investment and that it wasn't something I was interested in doing.
This was almost 2 years ago, so I would bet it is even worse.
Also as an added item that really was a major item, real estate agents are among the tightest folks when it comes to paying for anything, so they would always be trying to squeeze you for more stuff and less pay. Not a situation I was looking for.
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White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Hi Dennis
I'm not sure if the market is the same for this stuff in the UK as it is with you. A few real estate agents in the big cities seem to be getting into it, London etc, but not really here in Liverpool. I actually came across an odd problem which I didn't expect when I started checking it out. Some of our local estate agents viewed pictures that were too good, 'exposed too many problems' and virtual tours sort of meant they didn't have to take clients to see properties in person, and saw it as a bit of a threat to their jobs. I was rather surprised as I may have naively thought they'd view it as an asset with which to aid selling. Weird!
I get the impression the 'selling' nature of the US realtors is far more positive than this, good luck.
Muse
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