Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z 3 Tips for Hiring a Commercial Real Estate Photographer
When you're ready to sell your commercial property, it is a wise idea to hire a professional photographer. What should you look for when hiring a professional commercial real estate photographer? What are some technologies that could be useful in marketing your properties visually? We are interviewing Brian Balduf, CEO and co-founder of VHT Studios, a visual marketing company with over 1,000 photographers and videographers, focused in real estate.
You can read this episode here: https://montecarlorei.com/top-tips-for-hiring-a-commercial-real-estate-photographer/
What are some tips for screening a good photographer and videographer that has focused in commercial real estate?
I would say the most important thing in screening or choosing a partner or provider for photography or video is look at their experience. Anybody could push a button on a camera and take a picture. But that's not the point here. The point is you want to impact, make an impression, create a perception and sell or rent the property. So you're really looking for a return on your investment. The best way to do that is to see what they've done before that's similar. Not just their work, not just photographs of weddings, or puppies, or things like that. Show me what you've done with properties that are similar to mine. Whether it's a hotel, a retail location, or a manufacturing location. I want to see it. You also want to work with that photographer on what are you trying to convey? What are you trying to present to potential buyers and renters? What's the story of this property? What are the highlights or features of this property that should be focused on and make sure that they understand that. That they're not just coming through and taking pictures to take pictures. You want to show it in its best light, make great first impressions and appeal to certain audiences.
Third, I would say, is understanding your licenses and rights to use those photographs. The way it works in the United States is the producer or creator of the visual assets or the intellectual property owns it and owns all the rights. Unless they give rights to you, and you always want that in writing so it's very clear. Here's what I can and can't do with these photographs. It's a very big topic in the industry today because I think a lot of people assume that once they have the photographs I can do anything I want, but that's not necessarily true. The license could be restricted to just print, just brochures in magazines, or it could be restricted to just the Internet. If it's not in writing, you really don't have it. You need to ask for it and have that agreement. So I think those are three important things in screening a photographer: the quality of their work experience, their ability to understand your story and your audience, and getting those licenses in writing.
How do photographers charge for commercial properties? Is it per square foot? Per room? How does that work?
That’s a good question. Generally, it’s per photograph. So you’ll have a rate for the artist, photographer, a pilot to come out to the property. Think of that as a session fee. So you pay them to come out and shoot everything that’s applicable. Everything that makes sense. And then on the back end, you proof those photographs and get to choose the ones that you want to license. And it’s just a per photograph license fee. So it’s a combination of those two. The range could go anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple of thousand dollars depending on the size of the property. How many photographs are being taken and the mix of services.
Brian Balduf
https://vht.com/