park city drone shot

Photo in Deer Valley UT by Rocky Maloney of Summit Sotheby’s International Realty

A few real estate agents in the La Jolla, California area are using drones and aerial photography to sell high-end properties in the area. Imagine an eight-propeller (octocopter) drone fully equipped with a built-in camera while it lifts off from your backyard. All you need to do is connect your Smartphone to the controller, and you become the navigator of a high-tech helicopter.

As the drone hovers twelve feet above the ground, it provides a live feed of property videos via WiFi. Sounds like a great way to tour properties without having to be there in person. It looks like something out of Star Wars.

The drones are also GPS-enabled, meaning that you can navigate the drone back to its original landing point in case the batteries are low or the drone flies out of its range.

Since the drone is equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) tracker, it can actually find its way home. Some high-end users are spending as much as $15,000 for a single drone; however, the average cost of the aircraft is approximately $1,000.

As evidenced in California, drones aren’t limited to the military anymore. As with most technological gadgets, drones have become smaller and more affordable, and it looks like they’ve a found a niche in the real estate world. In fact, some of the high-tech companies in the California area are saying that drone-based real estate will eventually become a billion dollar industry.

It makes perfect sense because drones can give buyers a bird’s eye view of properties in a way that they’ve never seen them before. The technology offers a much better way to view properties than a slideshow of still photographs.

Apparently a few realtors in California are going to great lengths by hiring a film crew to produce a Hollywood-style video to help them sell expensive properties. After all, it gives homebuyers a chance to see the property from different angles.

The cost of hiring a professional film crew can be quite high (not to mention the cost of the drone itself), but the properties that the realtors are listing run up into the millions.

Although cost can always be a consideration, the small aircraft paints a picture of a home or mansion that goes beyond still photographs, giving viewers a full perspective of a property that can’t be seen without travelling to the site in-person.

Although there are still a lot bugs to be worked out from a regulatory perspective, it looks like the Federal Aviation Administration is appealing a court ruling that would give them the go-ahead to allow the use of drones in real estate and other commercial projects.