How do people make money off of taking picture of houses?

Question

I saw a commercial along time ago of people taking pictures of homes and getting paid for it. I think it was a service for real estate, does anyone know of anything like that? Or how I could start doing that?

Answer 1

It could have had something to do with appraisals...Appraisers have to take pictures of the houses they are using in their reports that are considered comparable to their subject property.  Hard to tell from your description, but I'm constantly driving around neighborhoods taking pictures of houses for my comps.

Answer 2

Professional photographers used to be able to make money photographing houses for Realtors' sales brochures on properties for sale, shooting layouts for magazine articles, etc.  Nowadays, real estate agents shoot digital on their cameraphones and upload them to the agency's websites.

To get started, first you have to be a knowledgeable, experienced photographer.  If you were a really good amateur, you take a couple classes and try to go pro.  But learning from scratch to take good, professional-quality photos as opposed to most people's snapshots, takes at least a couple of years.

As a magazine editor & photo editor, it constantly amazed me how many people would tell me how many years' experience they had, then send photos to illustrate their articles that I wouldn't even put in a family photo album.  The difference is subtle, but telling.