With sites like AirBnB growing at such crazy rates these days, it can seem like nearly everyone has a vacation rental of some sort. Some are just renting a spare bedroom in their large home, while other have properties devoted solely to short-term renters.
As an interior photographer, you’re going to get asked to photograph these properties from time to time. While it may seem like it’s just another real estate shoot, vacation rental properties do need their own unique approach!
Let’s look at how vacation rental photo shoots differ from real estate photo shoots.
1. YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL
With real estate photography, the agent needs to find that ONE buyer who is the perfect fit. The homes are often unfurnished, so the photos are more about the amount of space available and any upgrades that have been done to appliances or finishes. You're showing off the space, the layout, and the costly features included. In other words, you’re showing the actual house, rather than telling a story of what happens in it.
With vacation rental photography, though, you’re selling the lifestyle that this home offers to its renters. The folks who book it will be looking for an escape of some kind, so painting a picture of what sort of fantasy life they can expect will draw people in. This means that furnishings and styling play a crucial role, but your style of photos do, too! You’re no longer going to be shooting ultra wide to open up the living room, but you’ll be going in a bit tighter to show the feel of the space and the quality of the furnishings. You’ll be showing vignettes and details, rather than empty closet space and dirty garages.
While these different goals and approaches may seem obvious, pay attention to how they'll affect your workflow. Vacation rentals often take a bit more time to photograph, both because of the story-telling component and because that entails more vignettes and styling. Different goals = different needs, and different needs often translate to a different workflow for you.
2. STYLING
With real estate shoots, you most likely do no styling. Yes, you make sure curtains are open and you ask the homeowners or agent to make the beds and clear dirty dishes. But that’s about where things end. Your involvement as a photographer is also most likely minimal when it comes to actively moving items.
With vacation rental shoots, styling plays such a large role that the photographer must be involved. Perhaps it’s as minor as shifting the stacked folded towels to face a different direction for the angle of the camera. Or perhaps you slide some furniture pieces over a bit to move them out of frame. Whatever you do, the details matter. Styling creates that lifestyle and story that is so important to repeatedly bringing in renters! Think about a dining nook that has a couple of mugs and the newspaper set out on the table. Consider throws or accessories casually laid across a bed or on the back of the sofa. The fire pit in the backyard could be perfectly set up with two wine glasses and a bottle of red wine nearby. That lounge chair by the pool is even more enticing when there’s a beach towel and a pair of sunglasses casually tossed on it.
Be sure to let your clients know that styling plays a big role and to prepare some props for a few special spots in the home. On your end be prepared to spend a bit more time communicating to your clients how to prep, a bit more time in each room helping to set up vignettes that create the lifestyle you want to portray, and more time editing as you'll have a larger set of photos with all those beautiful vignettes that were set up.
3. AMENITIES
Just like the styling, showing amenities speaks to the lifestyle being created in this home. Does your client have a super awesome coffee station set up in the kitchen? Are there a huge variety of local brochures and vouchers for guests to use as they explore the town? Maybe the bathrooms have especially luxurious touches with their toiletries or linens. Whatever special touches are offered, they need to be shown. After all, everyone loves to get pampered with extras!
Along the same lines as amenities is the local offerings. This includes things like local beaches, amusement parks, or major landmarks. Often, the homeowner has their own photos of these, but it’s a good idea to have a rate in mind as an add-on option for capturing local hot spots.
4. RATES
There are a few factors that go into the rates for vacation rentals and that distinguish these rates from those for a real estate sale listing. Before diving into these, let's look at a few stats:
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On average, property owners with professional photos increase their earnings by 40%, have a 24% jump in bookings, and are able to raise their nightly rate by 26% (source: AirBnB)
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Only 43% of vacation rental owners are currently using professional photography services. (source: Evolve) This means your clients still stand out from the hundreds of thousands of listings that are still not using a pro.
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Travelers are 83% more likely to inquire about a booking on listings with 20+ photos (source: FlipKey), so having a full and well-rounded set of photos is essential.
So clearly the photos on a listing are one of the (if not THE) most important factors to a successful vacation rental. This great amount of value alone is worth charging higher rates than a standard real estate shoot.
Licensing/Usage
Real estate needs are short term - a home needs to sell, photos get taken, it goes on the market, one buyer is secured, mission accomplished. The licensing of those photos is for that one sale transaction, and the next time that property goes on the market, new photos will need to get taken (or yours will get re-licensed).
Vacation rentals, however, need to use the photos in perpetuity, across many channels, so they can work 24/7 to bring in bookings at a consistent pace. This licensing is more extensive, and that translates to higher rates.
Workflow
We mentioned that real estate shoots need to bring in that one buyer for this lone transaction, and so that informs the workflow needs - tighter budgets, quicker workflows, more automation.
With vacation rentals, though, the photos need to draw in all sorts of people at a constant rate. They're there to tempt viewers with a getaway, and create many bookings consistently. It’s also no longer about bringing locals in on their Saturday morning for the open house. Suddenly you’re selling this space to people all over the world who have to decide on this booking based solely on what the online listing shows.
What does this mean to you, the photographer? It means that these shoots take on a lifestyle approach, which is more editorial and requires more thought and time on your end. Your process will be a bit slower from start to finish, and more detail-oriented. You’ll arrive on location and most likely do a walk-through of the home, taking note of things that need to be moved, removed, or opened/closed. Then as you set up each shot, you’ll need to do a scan of the space to make sure all elements are how you want them. This includes furniture placement, styling props, window dressings, and home decor. This will have to get checked for each photo since some elements may need to move for different angles. When you go to do the vignettes, that’s where you get more creative! The homeowner can help, but you’ll be adjusting any setup for the angles that you need. This means tweaking those wine glasses or rearranging that throw on the sofa. The vignettes can often take a bit more time, but they tell the story much better than the wide shots.
Editing can often also take a bit longer since you’re going for a more natural, editorial look. What this means for us is hand editing some bracketed shots or adding a bit of stylistic edits to the vignettes (nothing too crazy, though!). If outsourcing, these edits may be a bit more costly because of the desired final look.
Costs to Operate
One final thing to consider when pricing vacation rental photo shoots is whether you have higher costs involved for doing this shoot. A common additional cost is travel. Often, vacation rental properties are in fantastic locations that are not just down the road from you. This translates to having to drive farther for a shoot than you normally would. When considering how this impacts your rates, consider the mileage added to your car and the additional time that you'll spend driving each way.
Ranges
Many expect rates for vacation rentals to be the same as for a sale listing, so most people expect to pay somewhere between $150-300 for photos. However, with some education and solid work to back up your rates, you should land at higher numbers than what you charge for a sale listing. In my experience, the average vacation listing shoot tends to fall in the $500-800 range, with higher rates for high-end properties, remote locations, or unique photo needs.
Conclusion
Photographing vacation rentals can absolutely be just like any other real estate gig, but you wouldn’t be doing a great job for your client if you treated it as such. Short-term rentals have unique needs because the goals are different, so make sure to approach these photo shoots differently! Yes, they need to be quicker and less in-depth than interior shoots. They also need to be more detail-oriented than real estate shoots, though. With time and experience, vacation rental photo shoots may just become your favorite!