A drone photo or video can be extremely effective in a real estate marketing when the property is the appropriate fit. Only an aerial picture of a property or its location may sometimes convey the lifestyle, characteristics, and convenience of a particular listing to potential buyers.

However, make very sure you engage a professional drone operator who is fully licensed and insured against any third-party damage they may cause.

After that, the next step is to appropriately prepare the home for drone photography or video, which isn’t often obvious because the perspective a drone gets will be drastically different from what we see from ground level.

So, what are your options?

 

Here are five things you should consider doing with your real estate drone shots to get the most out of them:

 

1. Remove all debris from the yard, including toys, hoses running through the lawn, bikes, and containers. When you eliminate all of the excess, you may see more garden, lawn, or patio, which gives the impression that the house is larger.                                     
2. Clean the pool, paving, or wooden decks a day or two before the drone shots so that everything has time to dry (assuming water is used to clean these hard surfaces), and make sure you or the homeowners can finish everything. As a photographer, I’ve arrived at several properties on time only to find the owners or agents still cleaning the yard because things didn’t actually happen, which is inconvenient for everyone. Avoid these problems by getting everything done ahead of time so that the shoot day goes smoothly.

 

3. Roofs and gutters should be cleaned because they will be easily seen in the majority of drone photos of a home or business. A broken, dirty, or leaf-covered roof and gutters are not the type of message you want to send to homebuyers about how well the home has been cared for and maintained. Make arrangements to have it professionally cleaned, and you’ll have buyers calling you rather than prospects running from your property.                                                                                                            
4. Inform your neighbors that you will be doing a drone photo or video shoot, and provide them with specifics regarding the day and time of the photo session so that they are aware of what is taking place. There is nothing worse than being in a position where your neighbor is enjoying a scantily clad tanning session or if your neighbor’s kids are clearly visible in the video. Maintain complete transparency about what is taking place and when it is actually happening, and you will have a lot better video or photographic results, as well as happier neighbors.                                                                          
5. Check the weather forecast for the day of the photoshoot and consult with the photographer if you have any doubts. It’s not always a terrible thing to have an overcast day, and it can really be beneficial in some situations (for example, the contrast between the bright regions outside and the darker areas beneath a porch will be minimized on a cloudy day), but if it’s raining, it probably won’t work.                           

Conclusion:                                                                                                            

A great drone photoshoot or video is a great way for a real estate photographer to promote some Connecticut properties (but not all), so make the most of your photo session by doing the right things before the shoot.