The Real Estate Industry Takes to the Sky with Drones
By Stu Leventhal - Guru marketing Tips
There is a controversy brewing and it concerns who should be able to operate a drone and where, when and for what purpose. Geeks and techies are fascinated by drone technology. We humans have only scratched the surface with what can be done with unmanned flying gadgetry.
"I like the idea of using drones to show off a property because you can fly around and get a bird’s eye view of different areas quickly." Explains Gerri Leventhal of Find NJ House. "You would require a helicopter to capture the same dramatic views but a drone is small and can fly lower and into tighter areas where a helicopter would have a hard time getting into." Plus obviously a helicopter and film crew would be much too expensive to employ for every property listing a realtor has.
A drone video is obviously a great marketing tool for any house for sale. You can start with a large size view of the surrounding location, showing a home’s position to the other homes around it and then zoom in for a closer look at your listing from many hard to reach and photograph angles and distances. The problem is whether drone footage will be affordable to all realtors and thus soon an aide for all home sellers or just for the elite realtors that are willing to pay for the extra expense when promoting a very expensive property.
Drones with camera capabilities are not that expensive to purchase; you can pick up a decent drone for $1000 to a couple thousand dollars. But, not everyone is allowed to operate a drone and just fly around, what is basically considered a robotic gadget, and take photos and film, whatever one wishes to record, wherever one wishes to fly. For good reason there are privacy issues as well as safety and security issues to be considered. Thus droning is regulated by our government.
Military organizations use drones for fire power and so someone could do a lot of people harm with a drone. Also people could spy very easily on unsuspecting folks with a drone. Thus we have laws regulating the use of drones for everyone’s protection and there are even ‘no drone’ fly zone areas where drone flying is prohibited.
Realtors want to get those hard to get angle shots of properties and to glide around filming the landscape then zoom in on their house listing. You want to sell the house and great photos and videos set apart your marketing pieces from all the static advertising online. Drones equipped with cameras make it easy to verify the condition of a roof or a chimney too.
So, how easy is it to fly a drone and take photos or film a video at the same time as you steer the drone?
First know that drones are not just being used for outdoors photographs from the sky view; inside videos are being made too, with a drone flying in the front door and then cruising through the halls and up staircases then into rooms, hovering for a few moments to slowly spin so its camera can capture the essence of each room. Later, the realtor can add voice commentary and music to the drone’s video thus a well-controlled drone can become the perfect tool for crafting video walk thru tours of a home for sale.
Once you are finished recording the inside of your new listing, just fly out the back door and get some great coverage of the patio, its view of the yard and garden then sail over to film the pool area.
Nothing beats a drone video for showing the magnificence of a nearby lake, beach, popular park or hiking trail.
Inspectors are also utilizing drones to get a closer peek at high rise building projects. Flying around tall buildings thru-out stages of the construction phase helps identify problems that can be fixed before they grow worse. Back at the office, inspectors can take their time going over the video, checking the quality of the materials being used and the construction crew’s workmanship. Surveyors and City Planners are also finding ways to use drones to make their jobs easier and their reports better. One can cover a far and wide area to check the progress of ongoing, large realty projects too using a drone.
Farmers too are now checking their fields and fields of crops using drones saving lots of time and money of having to patrol their land by person. Not much beats the accuracy and versatility seen on maps captured using drone image technology!
Before you rush out to purchase a drone, you need to know that drone flying is strictly regulated by the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration. If your drone weighs over 50 pounds, you will have to register it with the FAA. You will have to state what purposes you are going to use your drone for; hobby, recreation, business and commercial use… and make sure you adhere by the laws for using your drone only for what you’ve been granted permission to use it for, in the ways that are legal for that specific usage.
Naturally drone manufacturers have crafted a bunch of smaller unmanned aircrafts under 55lbs which they have tried to categorize as strictly for drone hobbyists but the courts have ruled these smaller drones too come under FAA regulations. One tough ruling is that your small drone cannot be flown by you into areas where the drone is out of your sight. This means you cannot fly over a house roof or high fenced in yard to record what’s going on in the backyard if your drone will disappear from your view.
You are allowed to start flying your drone 30 minutes before the sun rises and you must end your fights 30 minutes after sunset. If you wish to fly during the twilight or dusk hours you need special, very bright, anti-collision lighting that can be seen for 3 miles. You will want to have different color lights on the front, sides and back so you can tell which way your drone is facing, flying, filming and photographing.
Yes there are now drone flight schools offering classes all over the USA which even provide the drones for their students seeking to earn their drone flight licenses.
Success with a drone for real estate purposes requires lots of pre-flight thought and good thorough planning out of your drone’s flight path. Not everyone is naturally great at handling and coordinating aircraft maneuvers. You need to practice flying to gain confidence with handling a remote controlled aircraft. Plus you have to gain experience with all the intricacies of filming, photographing and recording from the sky, if you are going to make great drone marketing videos that sell homes. Techie Drone Hardware and Software too has to be all understood and mastered.
When flying a drone always remember…safety first! Drones do run out of power and they do have mechanical problems and you need to learn how to handle those kinds of problems quickly, while staying in compliance with FAA Laws. If your drone happens to have an accident that damages anyone’s property to the extent of repair costs amounting to over $500 you must report the incident to the FAA within 10 days.
Remember; operating any UAS, unmanned aircraft system, especially while you are learning to fly drones, requires you to be supervised by someone with a Remote Pilot’s, Small USA Rated Certificate. To acquire your own Remote Pilot Certificate you will have to pass an Aeronautical Knowledge Test at an FAA-approved Knowledge Testing Center and you will be vetted by the Transportation Security Administration. Every two years you will have to re-pass the Aeronautical Knowledge Test.
All of the difficulties, laws and requirements for just being allowed permission to fly a drone for Real Estate Marketing purposes plus the skills required to actually get good enough at steering the drone and filming and photographing, has made most realtors turn more frequently to hiring professional drone services. Rather than go the route of purchasing one’s own drone, a realtor can receive great commercial grade images, photos and TV quality videos taken from the sky views via a contractor who is legally certified and more importantly, fully insured in case of unexpected accidents.
"I highly recommend using a Pro Drone Imaging Service for realty images via drones." States North New Jersey Realtor Gerri Leventhal. "Because it is not as easy as one would think to coordinate with the weather, cloud and wind conditions and the angles and brightness of the sun while flying a machine, in order to get the very best photos and video coverage." Realtors should check review sites and look for a top rated Drone Imaging Pro that is a Real Estate Specialist because they will know how to meet the requirements concerning photos on the MLS, property Multiple Listing Service.
It is of upmost importance that you hire a service that understands a Realtor’s needs. Time is money in real estate and every day you have to wait for your quality real estate photos is another day your drone photos are not online, getting you and your clients, offers from buyers!
Stay tuned because the techies and geeks love to add new features and capabilities to drones and they are constantly improving the cameras on drones. The real question is, as drones become better and better as well as less expensive to purchase, who will our government allow to operate them and with what restrictions?
There is a controversy brewing and it concerns who should be able to operate a drone and where, when and for what purpose. Geeks and techies are fascinated by drone technology. We humans have only scratched the surface with what can be done with unmanned flying gadgetry.
"I like the idea of using drones to show off a property because you can fly around and get a bird’s eye view of different areas quickly." Explains Gerri Leventhal of Find NJ House. "You would require a helicopter to capture the same dramatic views but a drone is small and can fly lower and into tighter areas where a helicopter would have a hard time getting into." Plus obviously a helicopter and film crew would be much too expensive to employ for every property listing a realtor has.
A drone video is obviously a great marketing tool for any house for sale. You can start with a large size view of the surrounding location, showing a home’s position to the other homes around it and then zoom in for a closer look at your listing from many hard to reach and photograph angles and distances. The problem is whether drone footage will be affordable to all realtors and thus soon an aide for all home sellers or just for the elite realtors that are willing to pay for the extra expense when promoting a very expensive property.
Drones with camera capabilities are not that expensive to purchase; you can pick up a decent drone for $1000 to a couple thousand dollars. But, not everyone is allowed to operate a drone and just fly around, what is basically considered a robotic gadget, and take photos and film, whatever one wishes to record, wherever one wishes to fly. For good reason there are privacy issues as well as safety and security issues to be considered. Thus droning is regulated by our government.
Military organizations use drones for fire power and so someone could do a lot of people harm with a drone. Also people could spy very easily on unsuspecting folks with a drone. Thus we have laws regulating the use of drones for everyone’s protection and there are even ‘no drone’ fly zone areas where drone flying is prohibited.
Realtors want to get those hard to get angle shots of properties and to glide around filming the landscape then zoom in on their house listing. You want to sell the house and great photos and videos set apart your marketing pieces from all the static advertising online. Drones equipped with cameras make it easy to verify the condition of a roof or a chimney too.
So, how easy is it to fly a drone and take photos or film a video at the same time as you steer the drone?
First know that drones are not just being used for outdoors photographs from the sky view; inside videos are being made too, with a drone flying in the front door and then cruising through the halls and up staircases then into rooms, hovering for a few moments to slowly spin so its camera can capture the essence of each room. Later, the realtor can add voice commentary and music to the drone’s video thus a well-controlled drone can become the perfect tool for crafting video walk thru tours of a home for sale.
Once you are finished recording the inside of your new listing, just fly out the back door and get some great coverage of the patio, its view of the yard and garden then sail over to film the pool area.
Nothing beats a drone video for showing the magnificence of a nearby lake, beach, popular park or hiking trail.
Inspectors are also utilizing drones to get a closer peek at high rise building projects. Flying around tall buildings thru-out stages of the construction phase helps identify problems that can be fixed before they grow worse. Back at the office, inspectors can take their time going over the video, checking the quality of the materials being used and the construction crew’s workmanship. Surveyors and City Planners are also finding ways to use drones to make their jobs easier and their reports better. One can cover a far and wide area to check the progress of ongoing, large realty projects too using a drone.
Farmers too are now checking their fields and fields of crops using drones saving lots of time and money of having to patrol their land by person. Not much beats the accuracy and versatility seen on maps captured using drone image technology!
Before you rush out to purchase a drone, you need to know that drone flying is strictly regulated by the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration. If your drone weighs over 50 pounds, you will have to register it with the FAA. You will have to state what purposes you are going to use your drone for; hobby, recreation, business and commercial use… and make sure you adhere by the laws for using your drone only for what you’ve been granted permission to use it for, in the ways that are legal for that specific usage.
Naturally drone manufacturers have crafted a bunch of smaller unmanned aircrafts under 55lbs which they have tried to categorize as strictly for drone hobbyists but the courts have ruled these smaller drones too come under FAA regulations. One tough ruling is that your small drone cannot be flown by you into areas where the drone is out of your sight. This means you cannot fly over a house roof or high fenced in yard to record what’s going on in the backyard if your drone will disappear from your view.
You are allowed to start flying your drone 30 minutes before the sun rises and you must end your fights 30 minutes after sunset. If you wish to fly during the twilight or dusk hours you need special, very bright, anti-collision lighting that can be seen for 3 miles. You will want to have different color lights on the front, sides and back so you can tell which way your drone is facing, flying, filming and photographing.
Yes there are now drone flight schools offering classes all over the USA which even provide the drones for their students seeking to earn their drone flight licenses.
Success with a drone for real estate purposes requires lots of pre-flight thought and good thorough planning out of your drone’s flight path. Not everyone is naturally great at handling and coordinating aircraft maneuvers. You need to practice flying to gain confidence with handling a remote controlled aircraft. Plus you have to gain experience with all the intricacies of filming, photographing and recording from the sky, if you are going to make great drone marketing videos that sell homes. Techie Drone Hardware and Software too has to be all understood and mastered.
When flying a drone always remember…safety first! Drones do run out of power and they do have mechanical problems and you need to learn how to handle those kinds of problems quickly, while staying in compliance with FAA Laws. If your drone happens to have an accident that damages anyone’s property to the extent of repair costs amounting to over $500 you must report the incident to the FAA within 10 days.
Remember; operating any UAS, unmanned aircraft system, especially while you are learning to fly drones, requires you to be supervised by someone with a Remote Pilot’s, Small USA Rated Certificate. To acquire your own Remote Pilot Certificate you will have to pass an Aeronautical Knowledge Test at an FAA-approved Knowledge Testing Center and you will be vetted by the Transportation Security Administration. Every two years you will have to re-pass the Aeronautical Knowledge Test.
All of the difficulties, laws and requirements for just being allowed permission to fly a drone for Real Estate Marketing purposes plus the skills required to actually get good enough at steering the drone and filming and photographing, has made most realtors turn more frequently to hiring professional drone services. Rather than go the route of purchasing one’s own drone, a realtor can receive great commercial grade images, photos and TV quality videos taken from the sky views via a contractor who is legally certified and more importantly, fully insured in case of unexpected accidents.
"I highly recommend using a Pro Drone Imaging Service for realty images via drones." States North New Jersey Realtor Gerri Leventhal. "Because it is not as easy as one would think to coordinate with the weather, cloud and wind conditions and the angles and brightness of the sun while flying a machine, in order to get the very best photos and video coverage." Realtors should check review sites and look for a top rated Drone Imaging Pro that is a Real Estate Specialist because they will know how to meet the requirements concerning photos on the MLS, property Multiple Listing Service.
It is of upmost importance that you hire a service that understands a Realtor’s needs. Time is money in real estate and every day you have to wait for your quality real estate photos is another day your drone photos are not online, getting you and your clients, offers from buyers!
Stay tuned because the techies and geeks love to add new features and capabilities to drones and they are constantly improving the cameras on drones. The real question is, as drones become better and better as well as less expensive to purchase, who will our government allow to operate them and with what restrictions?
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