Texas Real Estate: The Aerial Advantage
Did you know home listings with aerial images sell 68 percent faster than those with standard images (according to MLS statistics)?
And what if we told you that, according to the National Association of Realtors, 73 percent of homeowners say they’re more likely to list with a real estate agent who uses video to market their home?
“So why wait to use a drone services provider for eye-catching aerial images and videos that’ll help you market and sell your listings faster?” asks Wayne Franks, owner of Professional Drone Services of Texas. “The potential increase in your annual profits is significant”.
Agreeing with him is Lisha Maxey – a PDS customer and a Realtor® associate with Keller Williams–The Metropolitan in Houston. “It’s basic math,” she says. “The faster you sell, the more deals you close and the more money you make.”
Maxey also likes the 4K, ultra high-definition flyover footage we can produce, as well as the rotating, 3D modeling of homes and their surrounding landscapes.
“I can quickly and dramatically show potential buyers the home’s features from every angle,” says Maxey. “I can even zoom in and out for crystal-clear close-ups.”
PDS can also provide real estate agents anywhere in Texas with a geo-referenced, annotated 2D or 3D map of the listed property. In laymen’s terms, that means we can create custom maps measuring and highlighting aspects like distances to work or nearby schools, areas, volumes (i.e. pools), topography (i.e. slopes that could affect drainage) and particular points of interest (perhaps a nearby grocery store or doctor’s office).
Still, you may be thinking, “Is it really worth it to hire drone services for aerial photos or video of my listing?”
Well, here are some interesting figures to consider from David Young – owner of the Kentucky-based Drone Launch, in his blog post “Drones for Real Estate Marketing: Are They Worth It?”
“Let’s keep things simple and assume that the price of the average home you sell is $350,000 (the approximate average as of October 2016), the total commission is 6 percent, your brokerage gets 3 percent, and you end up with 1.5 percent (half of the 3 percent),” says Young. “That’s $5,250 for you per transaction. Let’s also assume that you close 11 transactions per year (NAR average for 2015). That’s an annual salary of $57,750.”
Now add aerial images and videos to your listings, and you’ll find that salary number has jumped quite a bit.
“If we go off of the statistic that homes sell 68 percent faster when using aerial imagery and that 73 percent of homeowners prefer to list with an agent who uses video, we can be conservative and say that you could attract 50 percent more listings and close 50 percent more deals,” says Young. That would push the 11 transactions to about 17, “which would result in an annual income of $89,250 in our scenario, an increase of $31,500.”
But what about the money you just spent on the drone imagery? The average cost of hiring a drone services provider to shoot and edit (according to this article on drone photography for real estate by RIS Media) is about $200 to $500 for a small project and from about $500 to $1,500 for a large commercial project.
Let’s choose a figure in the middle – $500 – and go back to Young’s numbers above. It would’ve cost you $8,500 for each of those 17 listings – but you’re still looking at an increase of $23,000 per year compared to not using aerial photos or videos at all. That’s an ROI of 270 percent!
Want to know more or want to place an order?
Just contact us! Or give us a call (713) 569-1341.
