Best Drone for Real Estate Photography 2022
In this post, I’ll be showcasing some of the Best Real Estate Drones in the market and sharing effective ways you can use drone photography for real estate marketing.
Drones are an effective tool to create high-production value videos on properties you would like to showcase. It enables realtors to provide prospective buyers with unique views of the home, allowing them to experience the property without being physically present.
How Much Does Real Estate Drone Footage Cost?
For me, there are two ways to look at your expenses when considering a budget for drone footage.
The first and the simplest is to hire someone to do it for you. This takes the least amount of effort, as you pay a professional to take drone footage for you. It is especially great for busy realtors who want to get a high-quality clip without much effort.
You can skip buying the Best Drone for Real Estate Photography, which can be great for those looking to save on upfront costs.
The typical cost for a drone video is usually around $100 to $500, depending on the experience of the videographer and your location.
For that price, you can typically expect a 30-second to 1-minute HD Drone Video, which you can then use in various ways to market a property.
Once you’ve produced a video you can check out this video to learn more about ways you can incorporate the video on Paid Advertising Strategies for Realtors.
Image by Thomas Ehrhardt from Pixabay
If you’re reading through this article because you want to invest in the best drone for real estate videos, then you’ll want to go with option two.
Option two is buying a drone that you can use to capture real estate footage for your clients. Purchasing a drone comes with its own set of pros and cons.
On the positive side, you get a drone, and learning how to use it allows you to capture drone footage without needing to pay a photographer every time you produce a new video.
The downside, of course, is you have to spend money buying the drone and invest the time to learn how to use it.
Depending on where you’re at with your Real Estate Business, you may want to look at both options and figure out which of them would be good for your situation.
If you decide to buy a drone, consider one of the Best Real Estate Drones featured in the blog, or buy a different model that best matches your needs and budget.
How To Get the Best Drone Shots for Real Estate
So you’ve purchased your first drone to get footage on your properties; what’s next? You’ll want to take that drone and try it out as soon as possible. Get a feel for what type of shots you can create and experiment to figure out which works best.
If you’re new, however, you’ll want to follow some basic patterns to get the best clips possible. Below is a list of three ways to use the Best Real Estate Drone to produce high-quality videos for your business.
The Approach Shot
An approach shot is a high-elevation and wide-angle view video capture of the surrounding neighborhood of a property.
This shot is usually used as an intro shot for most Property Drone Photography as it helps orient viewers to the home’s location. This type of footage is a bit slow-paced to help give you time to review the many details showcased in the video.
The perfect use for Approach Shot Footage in Real Estate is to use them as your intro content. You can usually take two to three clips of different approaches and edit them together to create a 30-second to 1-minute video of the neighborhood. This is also the perfect spot to edit branding logos and provide your hook statement for the video.
To execute the Approach Shot, you’ll want to take your drone to a high elevation and set it to a wide angle. Try to capture as much of the surrounding neighborhood as possible. You’ll then push the camera in one direction, either forward or to the side, to provide viewers with more footage of the surrounding community.
Image by saddleroad from Pixabay
Push In and Push Out
Another great idea for amateur videographers is a basic push-in or push-out shot of a property.
The push-in shot is a slow showcase clip of a structure, providing a welcoming video that introduces buyers to the home. The shot is perfect after your typical Approach Shot to transition watchers between you talking about the neighborhood to highlighting the actual residence.
To do the Push-In shot, you’ll want to take your drone away from the property and point the camera with the target home only being partially visible. You then push the drone closer to the house while simultaneously panning the camera to provide a better orientation of the property.
This helps give the feeling of you walking into the home and helping immerse your viewer into the video.
The Push-Out shot has the opposite effect and is perfect when ending your typical real estate video. You can usually overlap audio that thanks the audience for watching your video as well as providing call-to-action statements.
To do the push-out shot, you simply start near the house and slowly push the drone away while the camera stays static.
A variation of the push-out shot is having your drone start close to the home and slowly zoom out to showcase the land area of a property. This is perfect when discussing lot orientation and providing information about a home’s outdoor features.
Image by René Bittner from Pixabay
Circle Shot
A 360-degree Aerial Shot or Circle Shot is a standard technique for the Best Drone for Luxury Real Estate videographers needs to have in their skill set.
This is a basic shot where you have your drone circle around your target home to provide a viewing of the entire structure to your viewer.
Most drones will have an automatic setting to enable you to capture this shot easily. You simply position the drone a good distance away and open up the built-in app to instruct it to record the property in a full circle.
The Circle Shot is a fantastic clip you can put in between your interior showcase clips. This provides a cinematic video perfect for showcasing the many positive features of the property.
Depending on the speed setting, you can use this shot to help extend the length of your video, providing ample time to talk about the home.
Once you’ve produced a video using these techniques, learn about how you can best incorporate them on your website with our 20 On-Page Real Estate SEO Strategies. Try to focus on the video section where we detail out our neighborhood tour video strategy.
5 Best Drones for Real Estate Photography
So you’ve decided you want to buy a Drone for Real Estate Video and need help figuring out which would be the best? Then our list of the five Best Real Estate Drone is here to help.
Each drone featured on the list was added based on online reviews and considering how its features would be useful for a realtor. These drones are not arranged based on any particular ranking but are instead featured depending on how you plan to use them. If you’re using a different drone you would like to recommend, please leave a comment below.
| Drone | Price | Camera | Video Capture Resolution | Battery Time | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryze Tech Tello | $99 – $150 | 5 Megapixel | HD 720p | 13 Minute Flight Time | 2.82 Oz |
| DJI FPV Indoor Drone | $1,000 – $1,300 | 12 Megapixel | 4K HD 60FPS | Approximately 20 Minute Flight Time | 10.4 oz |
| DJI Mavic 3 | $2,000 – $5,000 | Dual Camera 20 MP + 12 MP | 4K HD 60FPS | Approximately 46 Minute Flight Time | 31.5 oz |
| Autel Robotics EVO Lite Plus | $1,000 – $1,500 | 20 Megapixel | 4K HD | Approximately 40 Minute Flight Time | 28.92 oz |
| DJI Mini 2 | $500 – $800 | 12 Megapixel | 4K | Approximately 31 Minute Flight Time | 8.78 oz |
2 Best Drones for Indoor Real Estate
If you’re in the market for an Indoor Real Estate Drone, you’ll need something small and relatively maneuverable.
This allows you to easily use the drone indoors, which can be quite a challenge, especially if it’s your first time. Although these drones can also be used outside, their relatively small size is not as stable as the larger models.
These types of drones are perfect for mid-size buildings or warehouses where you want to capture indoor features of the property that your typical video camera can’t normally take.
If you’re producing an indoor video for a typical single-family home, then a 4K camera or most modern mobile phones will do the trick.
Ryze Tech Tello
The Best Budget Drone for Indoor Real Estate is the Ryze Tech Tello. It’s an affordable toy drone that features DJI flight tech inside.
It allows you to get excellent drone app features at a fraction of the cost. The 5-megapixel camera can capture 720p videos, which is relatively okay quality and is an amazing deal for a $100 device.
If you’re planning on getting the Tello Boost Combo package for an extra $50, you get additional accessories included in your purchase.
The package includes Ryze Tech Tello Aircraft, 4 Propellers (Pair), Propeller Guards (Set), 3 Batteries, a Micro-USB Cable, a Propeller Removal Tool, and a Battery Charging Hub on top of the actual Drone Set.
About the Drone
- Price: $99 – $150
- Camera: 5 Megapixel
- Video Capture Resolution: HD 720p
- Battery Time: 13 Minute Flight Time
- Weight: 2.82 Oz
Reviews
DJI FPV Indoor Drone
If you have a higher budget, you should get the DJI FPV Indoor Drone.
This drone is a high-quality device designed to produce the Best Indoor Drone Real Estate videos possible.
However, you have to consider that this drone will probably cost you around $1,000 for a full set, which is a significant investment for a drone. You get tremendous value for your money as the drone records 4K video quality and can record Super-Wide angle shots.
There are two add-on packages that a buyer can consider when looking at the DJI FPV Indoor Drone as of the writing of this article.
The Fly More Kit offers a pack of accessories compatible with the drone, including a pair of extra batteries, two propellers, and extra screws.
The second add-on includes The DJI Motion Controller. It provides the user with a different controller that they can use for the device. Check out the video below from DJI to check it out.
Photo by Isaac Maffeis on Unsplash
About the Drone
- Price: $1,000 – $1,300
- Camera: 12 Megapixel
- Video Capture Resolution: 4K HD 60FPS
- Battery Time: Approximately 20 Minute Flight Time
- Weight: 10.4 oz
Reviews
3 Best Drones for Real Estate Videos
There are several factors that you need to consider when choosing a Drone for Real Estate Videos. The main ones include video quality, price, and functionality.
If you’re new to drones it may be a challenge when it comes to choosing one that works for your specific needs. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of three drones that can work for realtors looking to film drone shots of their property.
DJI Mavic 3
If you’re looking to buy the best drone possible, you can’t go wrong with the DJI Mavic 3.
This is the top-of-the-line flagship model from DJI and offers all the latest features from the company, matched with a professional-grade Hasselblad Camera.
If budget is not a concern and you’re planning on investing in a drone that will be used a lot, then this would be your best bet.
The Add-on options available for the DJI Mavic 3 allow buyers to get additional accessories on their purchase. However, the Mavic 3 Cine package offers a big difference from the standard one.
This package enables the drone to use Apple ProRes 422, a video compression format used by professional videographers. Unless you’re a pro-level content creator, you’ll likely not be using this feature.
Photo by James Khashchuk on Unsplash
About the Drone
- Price: $2,000 – $5,000
- Camera: Dual Camera 20 MP + 12 MP
- Video Capture Resolution: 4K HD 60FPS
- Battery Time: Approximately 46 Minute Flight Time
- Weight: 31.5 oz
Reviews
Autel Robotics EVO Lite Plus
Buy the Autel Robotics EVO Lite+
If you’re in the market for a mid-range drone, you may want to opt for the Autel EVO Lite Plus.
This drone is around half the price of the Mavic 3 without sacrificing much in terms of quality. You still get similar specs, with the key difference with the drone having a single 20 Megapixel camera.
Considering it is half the price, this is a good deal for realtors with some money to spare but don’t want to break the bank for a new Real Estate Drone.
About the Drone
- Price: $1,000 – $1,500
- Camera: 20 Megapixel
- Video Capture Resolution: 4K HD
- Battery Time: Approximately 40 Minute Flight Time
- Weight: 28.92 oz
Reviews
DJI Mini 2
The third and last drone, and my personal favorite, is the DJI Mini 2.
Although an older model, the DJI Mini 2 is still quite competitive thanks to its price tag.
This is the perfect entry-level drone and is a great buy for amateur videographers. The easy-to-use software, matched with its low price point, makes this the perfect drone for realtors.
If you plan on using this to produce property showcase videos and upload them to YouTube or your website, then this drone is perfect.
It produces 4K quality videos, and although it is lower quality than the two drones before, most viewers watching your drone footage wouldn’t notice the difference.
Photo by Job Vermeulen on Unsplash
About the Drone
- Price: $500 – $800
- Camera: 12 Megapixel
- Video Capture Resolution: 4K
- Battery Time: Approximately 31 Minute Flight Time
- Weight: 8.78 oz
Reviews
I hope you found our guide on the Best Real Estate Drones helpful. If you liked this guide, and would like to learn more tips about how to improve your real estate business, check out my Podcast next.
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