Real Estate Photography with Michael Stolte

This is episode number 139 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Greg Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you could tune in, dial in, drag the clicky likey thing on the Facebooks and the— no, no Instagram Live though.

Not today, ever. Well, probably not.

They're just not going to make it available, Kev.

Why?

Why would they not make it available?

They want they want everyone to stay on the phone.

Oh, oh, Craig!

I have it right. Look, I'm taking it out.

Oh, what?

Ha ha! Look at that.

We we've got.

I can amend my ways.

We've got all kinds of new technology at the homeowners show tonight. So or today.

Today.

If it's today. Right.

Yeah.

So yeah.

What you been up to, man?

Oh, dude, this has been a— this has been a crazy week for me.

I kind of feel like since Eric and I picked on you last week, you brought your dad.

I did. Yeah, my dad's here tonight.

So you think he's gonna stick up for you?

Probably not.

Okay.

No, no, he knows me too good.

I like him too, then. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a—

but it's been a— it's been a crazy week. So last week, Eric was on the show. And it was a big surprise that he showed up to my house as my best friend Mike. And showed up to my house because my, my 40th birthday was on Monday.

They're all paying their final respects. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. And so Eric was leaving on Saturday and my brother showed up from Amarillo randomly. I did not— well, it's not random to most people. It was random to me. I didn't know he was coming. So anyway, lots of things were happening this weekend that I didn't know was happening. So it's been a It's been good, but now I'm playing catch-up a little bit, so— but it's been good. What's up with you, man?

Dude, I, um, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I don't believe that.

Dude, like, it's just— it's been work and work and work and work. Yeah, I've been out. I've been assassinating things. Um, so—

Like, like animals or bugs?

Bugs.

Oh, okay.

So it is swarmer season, so that's fun. Oh.

That sounds awful.

It's awful for the people that have them.

Yeah.

So let me tell you this, like, this is the thing that irritates me is I show up to a woman's house the other day, she had called me because she has termite swarmers, okay? So, and for anybody that's living in the South right now, yep, if you have a yard, there are subterranean termites. Sure. On average in a neighborhood, you have 20 colonies of termites living in your yard.

That's a bunch.

At any given time.

Okay.

And just because they swarm does not mean that your house is about to cave in.

Oh.

That also does not mean that there aren't predatory companies out there that tell you that it is.

Yeah.

You know, and so this woman, she had sent me a picture of swarmers and I said, yeah, those are termite swarmers. If you want me to come take a peek, we'll take a peek at it. So I go and take a peek. I look at the house, the house looks great. And she's like, well, this other guy told me that I had termites. I said, did he come out? She goes, no, I just sent him the picture. And she showed me the— she showed me the message. She sent him the picture. His message back was, congratulations, you have termites.

Wow.

And like, that's— wow, that's a several thousand dollar diagnosis that he just made over a telephone, you know, without putting eyeballs on it.

Wow.

And it's sort of like these guys that chase hailstorms.

Yeah.

It's just irritating because it just gives everybody else a bad name.

Sure.

Rant over.

That's in every industry.

Yeah.

So it's not just, hey, you have termites, you better watch out. Right?

Well, it's not even that. It's like, where did they come from? Yeah, they could have come from your neighbor's yard. They could have come from the woods. Who knows? They just landed here. Yeah.

So the other day, we, we walked outside and, and looking over at the trash and, and actually, we came home, walked inside, and there were bugs all over the counter. Now they were dying, but there were bugs all over the ground.

Right.

What's going on? You know, my wife's looking at me going, well, they look like termites. So we went outside, we're by the trash cans, we see all the, all the wings.

They shed their wings. They're everywhere.

And, um, we had termites come out.

How dare you?

They had— I'm sorry. It was, it was already in place. So these guys come out and they said, oh, these are just carpenter ants. I'm like, well, what about all these wings? He's like, oh, well, I'm gonna have to bring in another guy. So the 2-hour window that we were there just the other day, it just turned out to be nothing for him to tell me we got to bring out another guy. Yeah, like, are you kidding? So that irritates me.

Yeah, by the way, it's It's always like that. It's so frustrating.

Just call Craig.

Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, seriously, make sure you give me that card.

I got you, brother. So I got you. Kevin, tell everybody who's talking on the microphone.

Yeah, yeah. So this, this is my buddy Mike Stolte. And is it Stolte or Stolte?

It's Stolte.

Okay, Stolte. I always screw that up. Anyway, this is my buddy Mike. Mike is a real estate photographer. And, um, I'm, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us how, uh, you became a real estate photographer and all of those sorts of things.

Wow. So my name's, uh, Michael Stolte. Uh, my website is, uh, michaeljstolte.com. It's S-C-O-L-T-E dot com. And, uh, I've been in the real estate industry for 18 years. Uh, I started out as a real estate agent. Um, so went to school, did all that. Um, Got my license, became a licensed real estate agent, made great money. And then I just kind of fell in love with the marketing and photography aspect of it. So my first camera, I bought a digital camera because someone wanted me to take pictures of their house, $1.2 million home. Hmm. It was a Fujifilm point-and-shoot 3-megapixel camera. Now the office camera at the, uh, the real estate company I was with, um, it took a floppy disk instead of an

SD card. It was huge. It was like 1 megapixel. And then you just had to pop out the floppy disk and put it in your computer.

Was it like an actual floppy disk or was it like one of those camera floppy disks?

No, no, no.

You know what I'm talking about?

It's, it's, it was a, uh, 3.5-inch.

Yeah, 3.5-inch.

Yeah. Okay. Wow.

Yeah. And you just pop it out and pop it right into your computer, you know, and then upload the 5 pictures that it took, right? So, uh, so, so that was my first camera. And then of course I've upgraded and upgraded and upgraded and upgraded and, and, um, I have a lot of cameras now, which I pass on to my children. So my oldest daughter has a camera, my youngest daughter has a camera, my wife has one of my cameras. Um, and I had my first business for years. I sold it in 2018, and then I started up another real estate photography company. Another gentleman had asked me to, to help. Uh, so I was with him

for 2 and a half years, and I left his company in 2020, September 15th, 2020.

And, uh, middle of the pandemic.

Middle of the— well, well, yeah, yeah, I guess so. Middle of the pandemic. And, um, went back out on my own, and it's awesome, you know? Yeah, I went from me to my camera and a tripod and a flash To, um, 3 other photographers. I'm looking to bring on my 4th photographer in Bryan-College Station.

Wow.

We developed a relationship with Houston Real Producers Magazine, so we shoot for them. So I have Michelle Butler, Kimberly Robbins— do not call her Kim, she does not, she doesn't care for that. No, she doesn't, because here's the thing. I call her Kim and she's like, Kimberly. And I'm like, yeah, that's, that's what I said, Kim. Kimberly.

I'm like, that's awesome.

So, and then we have Trammell King, we call him TK. And TK is a farrier. So if you don't know what a farrier is, he's a guy—

Fixes the horse's feet.

He fixes a horse's feet.

Okay.

And he wants to get into real estate photography. So that's my crew. And You know, we have a special relationship. I pay them really well, so they stay with me.

Nice.

But, um, uh, like I said, I've been doing it for 18 years. Love what I do. Um, it's very busy, uh, 6, sometimes 7 days a week.

Wow.

Shooting houses. And I shoot houses 1,500 square feet, 1,000 square. I shot an apartment the other day. It's 470 square feet. Now, how do you get 32 pictures out of 400? That's tough. Wow.

I mean, you still have your, you still have your list, right?

You turn around a lot.

You still got your list, right? Yeah, you got the living room, the bathroom, this shot, that shot. Yeah, it's just they're all the same.

It is all the same. It's just you got to get real creative, I guess.

Your angles.

Yeah, go with the angles. Oh, absolutely.

Awesome.

Kimberly says she's, by the way, we are live on my Facebook page and If, uh, you need to go over to the Homeowner Show and like their page too, because we're live there. But she's like, awesome team.

Nice.

So loves the team. So she's, you know, tell you a quick story about Kimberly. She, she's in my life group at church. And, uh, and I knew that she was a photographer and, and we kind of called each other and started talking about real estate photography. I said, man, you should get into this. And she's, she, she's rocking and rolling. She's great. Michelle Butler does all of our like portrait stuff. So like for our magazine, she's our primary shooter there. And then she also does real estate. TK does our video and drone services. So he's awesome at that. But we were at an event and Kimberly brought her husband Robbie, and he's great at sales. Yeah, really good at sales.

And he is talking it up. He met this gentleman. Next thing you know, Kimberly was like, yeah, I'm going to be on Radio station here in Houston. I was like, "What do you mean? You did you did you invite me?" Right?

Like she goes, "No, no." I'm like, "This is for me." Wow. Yeah. Silly thing. You know why?

She did awesome. She did great.

They don't call her Kim.

Ah, that's right.

They don't call her Kim. That's right.

Kim. Appreciate it, Kim.

Yeah.

Burleigh.

Hey, I will tell you. I will have to tell you that. So my wife's name is Kimberly. And when I met her, she introduced me as Kim and introduced herself to me as Kim. And, and I remember some, at some point throughout the night, I said, so is your name Kim? Or is it Kimberly? And she said, well, it's Kimberly. I go by Kim. I was like, okay, well, do you mind if you're called Kimberly?

Do you?

Do you mind? She's like, no, my family all calls me Kimberly. I just typically prefer Kim. I was like, okay, well, do you mind if I call you Kimberly? Because I'm kind of like calling people by their full name, if that's, that's fine with you. And she was like, yeah, it's fine, whatever. Um, so later on in life, uh, which didn't take very long, when her— when, when I met her mom, that was literally the only thing her mom liked about me was that I called her by her actual name. Wow. She said this, she said, if I wanted her to be named Kim, I would have named her Kim. Yeah, but her name is not Kim, her name is Kimberly.

Yeah.

And so I fit right in.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, it's a big deal. If your name is Kim, maybe it's Kimberly.

It's probably— that's the end of the story. Unless you're a boy.

Yeah.

Which, that, that's— that could, that could happen. I actually know a guy named Kim and it's not Kimberly.

There you go.

I have a customer named Aaron. Her husband's name, it's E-R-I-N, and, and her husband's name is Aaron.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, it's Aaron and Aaron and Aaron.

They spell it different.

Yeah, his is A-A-R-O-N.

Okay.

So here I am voice texting. Yeah. And I'm always really quick to send. Then I look down going, oh man, I'm so sorry.

Wrong one.

That's okay.

Everybody does it. Well, tell me this. So you've been doing real estate photography for a long time. And I would imagine that over the last year with COVID hitting, that things have been a little bit different for you.

So when, when COVID really hit and everybody just stayed at home, the great thing about it was I could get to the other side of downtown Houston within, I don't know, 20 minutes from where I live, which is awesome. I was like, Where's all the cars?

Yeah.

But, um, with me, we went out, we got, we got masks, we got gloves, we sanitized our equipment, you know, every single house. Now, knock on wood, you know, and, and I guess I shouldn't say this, I have not gotten COVID-19.

Right.

So, which is great.

Yeah.

Um, But we go, we still use that practice. If people, uh, like right now there's no mask mandate, right? So we don't wear a mask in people's homes. There are still companies out there that require homeowners to leave. We don't. Um, if they want us to wear a mask, they're readily available.

Right.

If they want us to wear booties and gloves, you know, we usually go in and we wear booties. We don't wear gloves anymore. But if they want us to be completely protective, we're walking into their home.

Mm-hmm.

You know, we don't walk in and go, I'm the pro, I'm gonna, you know, no, we go in there and we do that. So it's really kind of changed, you know, in a sense, how I do my, my job. So a lot of homeowners, they stay away, they'll go upstairs, which is actually kind of good for me. Because, you know, when I first started this thing, I would, I would, right when I'd take a picture, little lady would look around the corner. But after the 5th one, I said, hey, is there a place where you can just go and hang out and just stay?

Can you be somewhere else?

Be just invisible.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, so I mostly, when I tell people, because they, they, I do have people that are like right behind me watching me the whole time and they're critiquing my work and they do, and I just tell them, look, If you can see the back of my head, you're in the right place.

Yeah.

If you see my face, yeah, you need to move because I'm pointing the camera towards you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, uh, but, but most of the homeowners and people that, that I come in contact with, real, real estate agents and whatnot, um, they're really good.

Yeah. And most of the time, I would assume, like, differently, because one of the things we heard whenever we talked to realtors right now is And people really are— had been maybe a little less right now, but had been real leery of people coming in their home, you know.

Yeah.

So you got to have pre-qualification letter, and you got to make sure this, you got to make sure that, and they gotta, you know, all this kind of stuff, right? Um, but I would imagine for you, people are really happy to see you because they've cleaned their house, they've got everything ready, they know this is kind of the last thing before they get that listing online, I would assume.

You know, the thing is right now in Houston with the market, the market is, is literally lava hot. And I say lava hot because you could go out and take pictures with your, your cell phone and put it on HAR. Now I'm not recommending that. You could go and take pictures with your cell phone and put it on HAR and it would still sell in a week. Yeah, not even that, in a day.

Right. So real quickly, because there we do have a lot of listeners that aren't in the Houston Yeah, what is HAR?

So HAR is the Houston Association of Realtors. That is our local real estate board. You can go to har.com, H-A-R.com. That's where you're going to— that's our local MLS feed. So that's where all the listings go. They don't— that, you know, they start at our local MLS feed, and then they go to like websites like Zillow and Realtor.com and And other home.com, other places like that.

Yeah, so it's it is if you're looking for a home in the greater Houston area, that is the place to go look.

Absolutely.

Okay, got it. All right, cool. So yeah, you're right. The the market is absolutely crazy. We were actually talking about this just earlier today, actually, with our buddy Eric G, and just talking about how how. Man, the houses are just flying off the market.

They are.

And you can't afford to build one, right?

So because materials are just through the roof.

Yeah, materials are so expensive right now. They're, you know, houses are costing anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000 more to build just because the materials.

So sure.

So people are wanting to buy, you know, already built homes, right? And they're just flying off the off the market.

They really are. I mean, you know, we photographed the Rathbourns' property. I don't know if you know them, but I don't— they attended Bammell and now they go to Conroe.

Okay.

And I think they sold it within 24 hours.

Hmm, that's amazing.

You know, and it was like, as soon as they put the pictures online, they had 50 showings, 25+ offers. That's the thing that just Really is phenomenal.

What were the specs on that house? Was it like 3/2, 4/2 and a half?

I think it was— oh, it was 4/2, 4/2 and a half with a pool, 2-story. Beautiful home. Yeah, beautiful home.

You can't keep those on the market.

In 1960. And it was just that they went in there, redid it, fresh paint, looked great. I mean, looked like a model. And, you know, even the ones that are sort of kind of hurting a little bit are still going. Yeah, people are buying homes now sight unseen.

Yeah.

I shot a home yesterday. Was it yesterday? Yeah, it was yesterday. $1.2 million. Show up, realtor's there, I'm there, I get out, I'm like, all right, man, nice house, you know, corner lot, whole thing up in Creekside. She goes, oh yeah, it's already sold. I went, what? She goes, yeah, I'm just getting pictures just because. I went, okay, got it. Go in there and photograph the house just because.

And that was— I think that was going to be one of my questions tonight. Are you guys even having time to take pictures? I mean, we—

I mean, we are, you know. Um, most agents understand that the market is like blazing hot. You know, and with the way that the Houston Association of Realtors has their MLS system set up, you can actually go in there and put a home as coming soon.

Right.

And now coming soon doesn't go out to the general public.

Okay.

But it goes out to every real estate agent that is actively looking for a house to put somebody in.

Right.

We have— it is, it is a seller's market. So let me tell you a little bit about what a seller's market is coming from a, just a person in the public. That means there's not a lot of listings out there, right? There's 50 listings to 1,000 buyers.

Yeah.

If you want to compare that. So you have this 1,000 buyers picking between 50 listings and you're doing multiple offers. if the house is worth, you know, and I'm saying worth fair market value, $350,000, they're going $25,000, $50,000 over. Photographed a house in Kingwood probably 3 weeks ago, talked to the husband.

Mm-hmm.

They're moving to Denver. Now, last month we had a 30-day supply here in Houston. So if we did not List a single house with a 30-day supply.

That's it. Goodness gracious.

Denver, Colorado, 3-day supply.

Oh, 3-day.

He put in an offer $150,000 over ask, didn't get it.

That's crazy.

Left, was driving in a neighborhood, saw a U-Haul truck, got out, knocked on the door. Said, "Are you selling your house?" They're like, "Yes." He goes, "We'll buy it." I'm like, "No, no option. You name your price. We'll buy it." Yeah, we're not going to ask for any repairs, anything. I mean, that's how nuts the market is.

That's insane.

That that is nuts.

And here's here's the crazy part, and I think you're alluding to this: is like Texas right now. I think it was we were talking about this on Clubhouse today. Is I think Texas just picked up. 2 House seats.

Yes.

Because of how many people have now moved to Texas.

Yes.

And they're talking about that probably happening like in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Florida, where they're potentially picking up congressional seats because of the number of people that have moved in these states.

Sure.

But you also have states like California, Oregon, Washington, where people are leaving en masse, but the real estate prices And the supply is still diminished because they're not building any, right? And, and for whatever reason, the demand is still high. And, and I guess it's because they're not building as many. I don't know what it is, or it's just people trying to move up into a better house, probably. Um, because— or maybe people anticipating that the market is dropping because people are leaving and thinking that they can do that. I don't know.

People renting. Yeah, that are wanting to move into homeownership, which—

what a horrible time to do that.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, but you think about it, this year, you know, statistically speaking, we were in a—

I'm not trying to rain on any real estate person's parade right now.

But we were, we were in a— when we were in an election year, uh, the— we were in a pandemic. The oil industry was just Gone at that point, right? And Houston was still blowing up. Yeah, with people buying houses. Yeah, unbelievable.

Yeah, and, and, and with cash. Yeah, I mean, and, and it's unbelievable how many people are, are moving here because, I mean, look, if you're from California or from the West Coast somewhere, specifically California though, right, um, they can sell a 3/2 there for $900,000.

Sure.

Turn around and buy a 4/3 here for $300,000. Yeah, $350,000, maybe even $400,000. They'll go 5 or 6 and still bank $300,000.

Right. It's, it's at a young, very young 2021. Come here, buy a huge house over in Spring, huge house. 5 bedrooms, game room, media room, the whole thing. And I was like, man, that's a big house for, for her. It's very attractive because of our, of the way that our, our state is set up. We don't have— one thing that they didn't quite get is the school taxes and all of that other stuff. And then I was like, oh, wow.

Right. Yeah, they're definitely not used to The property taxes because there's no state income tax for sure. Yeah, that's a, that's a big blow.

Sometimes we're gonna get our money somehow.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, most definitely. Well, so I, so I'm, I'm hearing what you're saying.

You're—

walk us through for a minute. Because I think a lot of people see the side of, of you once the pictures are done. They all of that kind of stuff, but kind of walk us through what the process is from, you know, the realtor calls you, says, I've got a house. What does that process look for you? Because there's also a certain number of pictures you need to take and a certain list. I alluded to a list, and I'm sure it's ingrained in your head at this point.

Oh, absolutely.

But there's a certain number of pictures you need and a certain picture itself, right?

So walk us through that for a minute. Well, The first thing we have to understand is how many images can our MLS system hold per listing?

Okay, 50. Okay, now is that—

is that— that's the top?

That is it. That's—

cut you off.

That's the max number, is 50. Now it used to be back in the early 2000s, you only had to upload one photo. That was it. And then HAR came out, Houston Association of Realtors, HAR. came out and said, no, you need a minimum of 6. Okay, so then it was 6 of the same photo because they just— they literally would just upload. Okay.

Yeah.

They're like, no, 6 different photos, different angles, things like that. So then it started getting better, and then it went to 32 images, you know. Now still a minimum of 6, but you could upload to 32. And that was the old Tempo system.

Hmm.

Uh, so it went from, uh, when I say Tempo, that, that's just the name of the back office that realtors, uh, would use. Now it's called Matrix. And, um, they go in there and you can upload 50 images. And, and at the end of the day, HAR.com, to me, and it's my opinion that they're competing with the local, I'm sorry, the national brands, realtor.com, zillow.com, things like that. if you go and actually search out real estate agents or search out properties on HAR.com, you're not just going to get local, you're going to get worldwide.

Yeah.

I'm going to get out-of-the-country listings, you're going to get San Antonio listings or Dallas listings or Fort Worth or whatever, maybe even in other states, you know. So even though it's still Texas real estate, um, you know, it just kind of brings that whole brand together. And when I was in real estate, we were kind of transitioning from kind of a— your, your local real estate agent to your more worldwide real estate agent, even though you're here in Houston, right? We can sell— a real estate agent that's licensed in the state of Texas can sell real estate anywhere in the state of Texas, uh, not just Houston, right? You know, it's not geographical location.

Sure.

So, but The reach. We have people in the oil and gas industry, and being Houston's the hub for that, right? And it's an international hub. We have people from overseas coming back wanting The Woodlands or Katy or Sugar Land or Friendswood. And so they're looking at O'Hara.com. They look at the other sites as well. But getting back to your question, my thing, when we go into a house, I have a checklist on my website that agents can be able to download and give to their their seller.

Okay.

And, you know, taking down personal items, you know, for photo day, lights on, fans off, blinds open, cars out of the driveway, lawn equipment stowed, personal items removed, paper towels, things like that. Put your potty seat down, guys. I don't like to touch them. I don't like to touch potty seats, but I'll touch the potty seat and then I'll Germ-X and wash my hands.

If you have to.

You know, if I have to, but You know, put your policies down, train you as a real estate agent. They are— Dogs put up. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Dogs put up.

Yeah. I had a guy in Magnolia. Oh yeah, my dog's friendly. No, he wasn't friendly. No, no, no. And when I went in the backyard, there was no way to get out.

Nice to you.

You know, I'm like, what is going on? But yeah, pets. Uh, put them away. Yeah, I'm not— you know, I love pets. I have 2 dogs and 2 bunnies and 3 children. And I'm sorry, 5 children. I forgot my oldest. But, uh, 5 kids. Oh my goodness. Uh, but that's their property and I'm a stranger in their house.

Yeah.

You know, I put my dogs up when my— when strangers come to my house. Please put your animals—

put them in a crate.

Get them in the garage temporarily. It's not too hot yet. Put them in the backyard, you know.

Yeah.

So, so yeah, that, like I said, fans off, lights on. Please have your home what's called show ready. You're ready for the general public to walk through your house. So that should be picture day.

Mm-hmm.

Beds made. I don't take pictures of closets.

You know, except for like a nice walk-in or something.

Primary closet is what they call.

Yeah.

Instead of the master, the master closet.

That's right.

M word.

But say that, Kevin.

Yeah.

Say that.

Can't say that.

I said it.

I'll say it again too. So, but yeah, you know, the master just, you know, we don't, we don't want to see your towels hanging unless they're brand new, folded correctly. And agents should, in my opinion, coach their client, come to check to make sure the house is ready to go.

Yeah.

And I'm going to say 95%— I'm going to give it 95% of agents do that. They're really good. You know, there's 35,000 real estate agents in Houston, and, you know, 10% Actually do it as a business.

Right.

And they go the extra mile. I've seen that, that I, and I, and I tell, um, I tell my clients all the time, I'm like, hey, you know, thank you. Thank you for having the house ready.

Yeah.

Now, if it's 90% ready and we have to move a few things, sure. If you got a young family and you got toys everywhere, hey, we can, we can digitally declutter. We can digitally stage. We can do whatever you want to do. Um, but, you know, majority of time, you know, be ready for, for picture day. Yeah.

So do you know who, uh, who Vicki Fleischer is?

I don't.

She's a, she's a real estate agent that used to go to your church. Uh, she may still go there. I don't know. Anyway, she's been my real estate agent for every single house I've bought, sold.

Uh, and I think you call me, my number is 832-247-0634. I'd love to give you 20% Michael J. Stolte.com.

She sells, she sells really nice houses, so she took me on as charity. Um, but, uh, I still remember the first house I ever sold, which she was the listing agent for. I've never been scolded that bad as an adult. When she showed up for picture day, uh, it was, it was, Craig, what's going on? Yeah, didn't you know today was picture day? Yeah, I knew today was What is wrong with your house? This is how we live. This is—

but not on picture day.

Not on picture day, you don't.

Do you know me at all?

She would— so one, she scolded me. Two, she was absolutely wonderful. She was hustling around the house helping me clean it, and like above and beyond what she needed to be doing because she was making sure we got a good price on the house. Yeah, and we did. Um, but man, picture day was stressful. Yeah, I mean, I was there just by myself. Wife was nowhere to be seen.

Of course not.

So, and here's one of the things that we do is when we go into your house, and yes, you've worked real hard, hopefully real hard to get it ready, hopefully, right? But you don't also understand, if I see something that I don't want in the photo because I think it's going to look better without it, I'm going to say, hey, excuse me, can you move that?

Yeah.

Oh, but I staged it. Nah, it's not gonna work.

Yeah, okay.

You know, just try to hang their head down.

Yeah, right, right.

All right, I'll move it.

You know, absolutely.

Has there ever been anything that was just like really awkward to address, like in, in the room? Like, hey, like, could you, you know?

So when there's something very awkward to the room, I don't—

You just don't address it?

Well, no, I, I pull the agent aside and take them to, you know, the front. And I'm like, hey, there's paraphernalia, there's this, yes, there's that. I photographed a house, I'm trying to remember, remember where, maybe South Houston. Walked in and it's the— a picture of the homeowner and his wife.

Mm-hmm.

And it was professionally done. It's very, very nice, just without clothing. But, but I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't see anything. Okay, you know, but I'm still thinking, oh, come on.

I'm still seeing too much.

That's gonna be in a photo blur out.

Yeah.

Photoshop that.

But like, because like, I'm in and out of a lot of houses too. And like, sometimes like, I'll walk into a room and there's a pole. And I'm like, do I address the pole? Do I like acknowledge that it's here? Because like someone's walking me through the house showing me the house and they're walking in, there's no shame. And I'm like, what do I do?

Me?

What do I do?

Here's what I would do. I'd get on the pole taking pictures. And I would put that on Facebook.

It's part of my marketing, you know?

Sure, sure.

And then you caption it, We work for you.

Or tips accepted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go.

That's fine. That's really good.

So you've got, you've got all of these different shots, and do you, do you do the maximum of 50, or do you, do you cap it at a certain number?

So I, I have, I have 3 photo, photo, uh, packages. Uh, a $99 package gets you up to 15 images. We usually do those for like lease properties. So we'll do that really quick. One front image, one point perspective of the front of the house, and then just one image of each, the best, you know, the best angle. So we're not just going to go put our tripod down and take a picture and run. Then we have up to 32 images. So we do Kind of like a midpoint.

Okay.

And then we do 50.

Okay.

Okay.

But, you know, it just depends on— it depends on the, uh, the customer, what they're wanting. I mean, I have people, oh, I want 50 photos and I want twilight photography and I want aerial photography and I want, uh, you know, floor plan, I want this and I want that, you know, which is great and it's overkill sometimes, you know. But then again, they understand they're not going to use all the images. On the MLS. They're also going to take other images and use them for other marketing, other things, you know. So I, I'm like print ads and things like ads, other social media, Facebook ads, right? Just to, just to give something different because, you know, you could do an ad on Instagram, but then you could change it up on Facebook and you could change it up on print,

you know. So there's, there's so much different ways to advertise. And then we also create virtual tours to where you can put unlimited images on a virtual tour. And that will help showcase the house much, much better. Right.

So is a virtual tour, is that like a series of photos as you sort of virtually move through the house? Or is it more like a video?

So a virtual tour is, the definition of a virtual tour is a tour that you can do, you know, see virtually. That could be a picture slideshow, that could be a 360-degree panoramic tour, that could be a Matterport tour.

Is the Matterport one where like it has like the little circles on the ground that you click on?

Yes.

Okay.

And there's, there's different variations of that. There's, you know, CloudPano, which does the same thing with arrows and whatnot on the floor, and it walks you through it. The Matterport's the big box, you know, that, that just kind of scans the room, which is really cool. Um, and then you have, uh, then you have cinematic video. We do a lot of cinematic video, so we like to tell a story with, with our video. So it's very slow motion, cool music, uh, you know, using corners to give motion to empty rooms, uh, lots of pushes. lots of side views, things like that. So, and we've sold more video than we have virtual tours and panoramic. I mean, I

don't— I picked up my Canon the other day, and I'm like, ooh, there's dust. That's my pano camera. Yeah.

Okay.

You know, we just, we hardly do those.

So what are the ones where I've seen on listings where you're kind of looking down at the house? You're almost looking as if you're on the So that, that's a Matterport tour. Oh, is that Matterport? Yeah.

Okay. It's called, it's called a dollhouse.

Okay.

For the Matterport, it is trademarked to Matterport.

Okay.

So, you know, that's how you know you're getting a Matterport tour is that dollhouse.

Okay. That's cool looking.

It is neat.

Yeah, it is real neat. Is that included in like your 50-picture thing, the Matterport, or is the Matterport like an add-on?

Oh, huge add-on.

Okay.

Huge add-on. It's— we charge by square footage. So we start around $200 for a 2,000 square foot house.

Okay.

And then we go up, you know, $100, $150 per 1,000 square feet. And it just depends on, you know, because there's other Matterport, you know, providers that charge, you know, they charge 8 cents, they charge, you know, whatever, per square footage.

Right.

So there might be a minimum. You know, it's $150 minimum and then 8 cents after that.

Okay.

Per square footage.

Yeah. And then, and then on top of that, a lot of realtors are really going after these drone shots as well, right?

Yes, absolutely. Air— aerial drone shots are, you know, a must if you want to tell a story with, with that. You know, if you've got land—

Because you'd like to bring in kind of a shot on the You can, because you can do like the video.

Yeah, you can do video and you can do, you can do photography as well. So, but drone shots are really for, um, you know, if you got land or if you got something you want to, to showcase, right?

Yeah.

So, so my, my realtor was telling us the other day, we'd been looking at some different things, and she told us the other day, she said, if I was going to list your house, um, I would want a drone shot because you Are on the golf course.

Yes.

So she would really want to be able to showcase, look, this is what this looks like from the, from the air.

Because you could, you cannot just have your home centered on the, on the screen, but then you can fly on the back of the golf course and your home can be off over to the left and you can see, you know, you can see the fairway and see how all that is tied into where your home is, which is pretty neat. And there's so many different angles you can do that and you can't, you can't really get that cool shot from the ground.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and like, I don't— and I assume this is true in your business, but like, in order to sell those photographs and get that and sell the video, the person taking them has to be having that pilot's license for the drone.

That's right. So you need a, uh, uh, what is it? Uh, Part 107, I think, uh, for the drone license. So, uh, you gotta have a TEL number. You gotta have all that.

Yeah. I mean, they have to be able to communicate with the tower. They have to be able to— they gotta know how to do all that kind of stuff. Yes, because they can cause some disturbances.

And the thing is, leading up to this and the reason why the government said everybody needs— now, this has always been the case. You need some type of certificate or license to fly a drone. But it got really bad when people started— the DJI products started coming out.

Right.

And everybody got a drone, and then everybody started flying it over ballparks and over parks, and people got hurt, and it was all in the news. It's, it's the latest craze. Now you never hear about it anymore, right? I mean, they never hear about it anymore, you know. Are people still out there being crazy with drones? Sure, absolutely.

Do you know why? Because I do. Why you don't hear about it?

Why?

There is— he's from Scotland, I forget his name. So like, he initially developed the product for the PGA because that was where they're having the biggest problem, was people flying drones over the golf course, right, to get a shot of Tiger or whoever, right? You know, on, you know, this— it's— I think the product is actually— it's called Drone Killer.

Oh wow.

And he basically puts a virtual fence. He can put a virtual fence over anywhere that if a drone flies into it, it immediately shuts the drone down.

Oh, wow.

And it just, it just, and they, you know, like at that point it's on private property, drone's gone. So people have really learned their lessons because they started flying these $10,000 drones into these, you know, trying to get, you know, 4K video.

Right.

And it was just going in the pond.

Oh, wow.

Because these, and they, and so now they have them over ballparks. They, he's, I mean, like he made a fortune.

Oh, wow.

Which good for him.

I mean, yeah, developed a great product. Absolutely.

I mean, he can kill a drone in any given space.

And I mean, you know, that, that's a— I would love it for it to where if they put up a net, you couldn't go past that net.

Sure.

You know what I mean? Instead of killing a drone, because that's a drone that's 200 feet in the air.

Yeah. You know, it could potentially hurt somebody.

Yeah. It could potentially kill somebody.

Yeah.

You know, so we got to be, you know, professional when we do it. We got to be respectful. You know, we still have people come out, oh, you can't fly that drone over my house. Well, technically I can. Yeah, you know, you don't own the airspace, and that's, that's, that's just being educated. Yeah, that's all, you know.

Sure.

Yeah. Are you guys flying DJI?

Uh, DJI Maverick Pro 2.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Or no, the actually the Maverick Pro, so sorry.

I got the, the Mavic Air.

Okay, cool.

It's a fantastic drone.

Oh, it's awesome.

I mean, those things are crazy intelligent too.

Oh yeah, well, it's amazing what they're able to do with those drones, especially, uh, roofers and, uh, insurance people that are, that are trying to take aerials of people's roofs, because they can zero in on, on some stuff that, to be, to be honest, like, you're getting a better image than your eye can even see, you know, in some cases. And so, uh, plus it's just so much safer. Sure.

You know, and lower your insurance, that's for sure.

Absolutely.

You go on roofs?

No, no, I do not.

My drone does.

That's right.

Yep. Well, cool. So I, I'm sure we haven't even brushed the surface, but what— is there anything else we haven't talked about that is kind of integral to what you do?

You know, we do, uh, we start doing, uh, floor plans, you know, for, for homes that, that just don't have floor plans, you know, which is really cool. So we use a, uh, we use a program, we use our cell phone. And it actually takes a video and we send it to a company and they create a really cool floor plan. The other thing is we can colorize it, we can customize it, we can do a lot of different things there. Now, of course, you always have to check, you know, it comes with dimensions, comes without dimensions. That's a big seller, especially like over in Bender's Landing. I have a, have a customer over there that every home gets a floor plan.

Mm-hmm.

You know, once we start offering, she's like, that's a no-brainer. You know, because that really kind of— looking at a 2D floor plan is a great way to visualize, you know, what the house is going to look like.

Yeah, absolutely. Because one of the things that I was always frustrated about before the virtual tours came out is I was like, where am I? Right? I'm looking at these pictures, but how— I see this picture of the kitchen. It looks like there's a hallway, but I can't tell Does that connect the kids' rooms? Does that connect the master?

What is that?

The primary?

Excuse me.

Yeah.

One of the cool things is that you can actually take a floor plan, upload it into a virtual tour system, and then put camera hotspots on the floor plan. Or you can do a 360 hotspot to where you just click there and then you can look around 360. as like you were standing right there in that floor plan.

Yeah.

So you can really get— I mean, the technology is there, right? You know, at the end of the day, in this market, how much money you're going to spend to, you know, to, to, to really, uh, market a house at this point?

I wouldn't.

Right, you're right.

I, I mean, right now I would go, okay, you got a 32-picture package, give me that one. Yeah. Because—

And that's all you need.

Yeah. Because right now people are buying sight unseen anyway, right?

Pre-pandemic, yes. Twilights, aerials, you're, you're, you're buying whatever you want to buy to be able to market the property effectively, right? And it's not just me because I'm just, I'm just the beginning stages of the marketing. Then they have to put it in, you know, some type of real estate magazine or the newspaper or, you know, Houston Chronicle. Is that still around? Oh my Who knows?

But digitally, it's lingering in the shadows somewhere.

Social media, Instagram. I have a, I have a customer that is just— she teaches me things. Lucia Clark with Better Homes and Gardens Gary Greene. She even teaches me things. She's got a nice little team there too. But she teaches me things like on Instagram. I I've taught her things with social media. We had a training class with JLA, uh, up in The Woodlands the other day on— we have the, uh, DJI Osmo with your cell phone and, um, the gimbal, right? The gimbal. Yes.

Sorry.

And, uh, put your cell phone on there and, and with, with the, with the iPhone 12 Pro or the iPhone 12, you got the wide angle and that doesn't give you the excuse To not hire a professional. Sure, but for social media, this is great. Oh yeah, I've got another one, Essie Benedict. I mean, she's awesome. She TikToks every one of her listings, and like I was in there and I was like, "Hey, I called her up." I said, "I can't duet this," and if you don't know what duet is, I'm not going to tell you. You just got to figure it out.

She's like, "That's a TikTok feature." It is a TikTok feature. Got it.

She's like, well, how do I, how do I turn that feature on? And she, and I said, you need to go in your settings, turn it on, let me do it. So basically it's a, it's a video side by side of her video. So she's doing her TikTok video and I'm watching it and you can see me watching her video.

Okay.

And then I'm on her video and I'm like, look, there's me, you know, and I'm just, I'm just creating Another TikTok.

Yeah, it's just content.

Yeah, that's all it is. And that's what you need, content and, and, and the right hashtags. You know, you don't want to put something just that's not getting any with, with like in, in Instagram, you can hashtag real estate and it can tell you how many, you know, 1.9 million or 17 million or whatever. You want to hashtag those big things for, for your, uh, social media.

content.

Definitely.

Cool. So, has anyone really taken it to— I'm thinking like the Oculus system or like a VR system where you can actually, like, you know, put the goggles on and, and go through the house like that?

So we tried that. Of course, Matterport's VR ready. Any virtual tour system that is a 360 is VR ready. I just, you know, it's— I don't see a lot of people there yet.

There yet. Yeah, it's not—

it's—

but people are playing with it.

They are playing with it. Yeah, the, the concept is there. Um, I— like I said, I just don't— it's something that was— it looked cool, it just never took off, you know? And I think it looks cool in the movies, it's very futuristic, but it's just not— it's not here yet. Yeah, I don't think so.

Well, not— I don't think enough people own those systems yet. Yeah, yet. In order— I mean, unless a realtor wants to, you know, buy one and take it to her clients and say, hey, put this on because I— trust me, I sanitized it. Uh, you know, you know, I mean, just there— it's not— I mean, I don't own one.

Yeah, well, I think, I think it really is going to need like some sort of like breakthrough interactive thing to make people want to have it, right?

They haven't had— they haven't had that.

I think they tried that Star Wars game, nobody liked that, right? Um, they just— they haven't had that.

Yeah, they just haven't had that thing yet that's made it like, oh, I gotta have it.

But I imagine once they do—

I mean, until it's like a PlayStation Oculus, people aren't probably gonna buy that thing.

Well, I really like watching the videos of people wearing it and then falling over because, you know—

Yes, yes, that is hilarious.

That's worth the price of admission. It absolutely is.

No doubt.

So I want to circle back around to something you were saying about on the MLS is capped at 50, right? Is that true on like Zillow and Trulia? So, okay, that's what I thought.

You can upload more. So an IDX feed is what— it's a feed that is specifically for MLS boards nationwide. So the way that Realtor.com, the way that Zillow.com, the way that Home.com or whatever, they have to have an IDX feed, kind of like an RSS feed for, for blogs.

Okay.

Yeah. This is an IDX feed for, for real estate listings, and they pull from all the local boards like SABOR or Austin Board of Realtors or San Antonio Board of Realtors, Houston Board of Realtors, uh, Dallas-Fort Worth. They pull that And it goes to their websites. So all that Realtor.com is and Zillow, you know, they were just marketing websites. Zillow's kind of taken it a step further. I think they are now a broker.

Really?

Yes. They're just— there's Zillow 3D tours. There were Zillow videos, which were really cool. They had a really cool app. You do it on your cell phone, get a gimbal. It does a 2-minute video. I think we charged, I don't know, $100 for it, you know, and no music, no nothing. Boom, done, you know, really quick. A lot of agents loved it because it would put their listing to the front of the search engines. So anything that had a video, yeah, came up first. Yeah, it doesn't do that anymore, right? Zillow took that away and I went There, there's nothing for me to try to sell that. There's no benefit anymore. So I, I just, I stopped doing that. And what I'll do now is I'll upload, or they can,

or the, the agent can actually upload one of our cinematic videos to, to Zillow if they want to add a Zillow video.

Okay.

To their system.

Wow. So they pretty much, I mean, like once, once you do it, they've got that content they can kind kind of play with it and put it where they want.

Yeah, I think, I think Realtor.com will— can upload like, the last time I checked, 100 photos, something like that.

Okay.

So yeah, you can upload, I mean, a bunch. Now, HAR.com, you know, they have a limit. And I mean, really, I mean, 50 photos on—

it's a lot of photos.

I mean, 3,000 square foot house or 3,500 square, that's a lot of photos. Yeah, you know, I— there are agents that, you know, can upload 10 photos and it'll sell a house, but it's the right 10 photos, right? You know, right? Uh, but if you've ever went to HAR.com and looked at a guy— I'm going to tell you this, real estate agents, please stop taking pictures with your cell phones for lease listings or get the newest you know, wide angle phone or a lens adapter for a moment and take your pictures because I just can't see a wall, wall, a little bit of floor. That doesn't tell me anything. You know, when I teach my guys on photography, it's a 3-wall shoot. I

don't do 2 walls. I try not to.

Right.

I get third wall because of dimensions and it shows better. You know, uh, if the, if the space is tight, we do a portrait shot to show, you know, ceiling to floor or whatever. But it, it's not just wide angle too.

Mm-hmm.

So it's all about us educating our, our customers to give them— because we're part of their team. We're not just a service for them. We are literally part of their team. Essie Benedict, for instance, when she goes on, you know, listing presentations, she talks about her professional photographer that comes in to do this. You know, it used to be not like that. It used to be agents took their own photos, agents, you know, with their cell phone. I love the ones that you see the agents in the, uh, in the mirrors in the bathroom.

Oh yeah.

Or just the arm.

Right.

You know, so So for us, they're not good enough at Photoshop to make that happen.

I'll just tell you that right now.

I'm not good at Photoshop to make that happen. But, um, you know, one of the things that, like, for real estate agents, they surround themselves with people to make them look good, right? You know, I do the same thing in my business. Uh, we have, uh, we have a couple of different editors, uh, they're overseas. So when I'm sleeping, they're making my photos look beautiful.

Oh, nice.

You know, and that's, that's pretty much the standard now. You know, most real estate agents, it used to be, do you have a wide-angle lens? Now it's, do you hire a professional editor, right? Or do you edit yourself, right? Well, I edit myself. Okay, next. You know, they find somebody else. And you know, there's, there's a lot of real estate photographers in the Houston area that are out there. Some that I've never heard of, some that are coming in and kicking rear end and taking names, um, some that come in and leave, you know, that don't want to do it. I've been here 18 years.

Mm-hmm.

I, I'm— I've grown a business, I sold a business, I helped start a business with another guy, uh, I've restarted my business, uh, and just branded it my name, and now I have Like I said, I have 3 other photographers looking to hire on my 4th, and all within— what is it, April? So 4, yeah, 6, 7 months.

Okay. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, that's really good, you know.

So, and the one thing that, that I will tell anybody that's listening that wants to hire me to come photograph their house, I'm not there to just make a dollar. You know, I'm going to give you my advice and opinion, and it's not going to be buy everything, right? Because I don't— I, I want to be able to keep that customer, you know, and I want to be able to keep that customer happy. I want to be able to be a part of their team. And that's something that I tell, you know, all my, uh, photographers that work with me. And that's the other keyword there, is the word with. They don't work for me. They work with me. We are truly a team. I help them out. They help me out.

Well, and I think, I think there's probably a lot of, especially right now, a lot of young real estate agents that might be thinking, I have the iPhone Pro or whatever, and I can, I can take these photos. I can do this kind of stuff. I read, I read a statistic the other day about, you know, people looking for homes that they make a decision about whether or not they like that home within the first 14 seconds. Which means they've probably looked at 2 photos, you know. And so like, you better shoot your best shot, literally. Like, you better have 2 photos that are just absolutely killer.

I don't know if this camera can, can pick that up or not, but yeah, that's a, that's a really nice photo on my iPhone right now. I, I took that with my iPhone, right? But if you really look at it, the verticals are straight, the horizontal lines are straight. It's, it's positioned correctly for, for a study. Same thing, same thing here. If you look at the beams, the beams are horizontal going, going across, you know? So that's what, that's what we do.

That's what you're looking for. Like, that's what you want to see when you pull up that listing.

So when I say 3 walls, 1, 2, and then 3 in the, in, in the back. Okay, so that shows, that shows depth, dimension. It gives that space character. And, uh, you know, and then, you know, maybe a horizontal shot like that. Yeah. And that's, uh, they got a nice little wine grotto there built in. Detail shots, which are kind of cool, you know, if we wanted to get like really cool details.

Yeah.

You know, something like that.

Sure.

It's like the pot filler over the stove, right? Yeah, right.

But, but all these images that I took of, of the, of this home, no electricity, anything like that, I took them all with my cell phone. You know, it can be done. But the thing that separates an amateur and a pro is your presentation. Yeah, your angles, right? And your composition. And if you, if you're just taking, you know, I love going and looking at, looking at older pictures that I'm having to go redo, and it's just a picture of the toilet. It's not going to sell a house.

No, it's going to be down the list a little bit.

A little bit.

But, you know, it's, it's presentation. It's, uh, looking over, looking over a couch, you know, looking at the TV, things like that. You know, that's really what it is. And when these guys do look, it's, it's like, we all like to see pretty things.

All the time. All the time.

You know what I mean? I mean, if it's ugly, the only reason why you're looking at it is because it's really ugly. Oh man, what is that?

That's like, hey, you got to come over here and look at this.

Yeah, it's like that element where she's like, but taste how bad this really is.

Art, people, food, whatever. If it's, if it's a beautiful thing, we do like to look at it as a human race, right? Right. Same thing with photography. If it, if it looks just dingy, I mean, it's okay, next. You know, that's why lease listings lose so much money. Because of not having professional photography.

Sure.

Agents don't make a lot of money on it.

So they don't want to spend the money.

So they don't want— the rationale is I don't want to spend the money.

Yeah.

But the true professional is I don't care.

Sure.

Yeah.

Because I can get somebody in there, I can go back and market to them after a year's up, I can get their business, or I can put them in a house instead of renting. I can put them in a house. Yeah, it's money well invested if you're the right real estate agent knowing how to invest your, your marketing.

Yeah, so one of the things that, that I'm curious about— that, first of all, thank you for, for saying the way you did— is because we, we like to do our best to educate people. And sure, and I think that really helped. One of the things that I'm curious about is, do you think there's a way whenever you're choosing the realtor That you can find out something about them with regard to how they're going to list your house, how, you know, talk to them about— yeah, right. But like, is there anything? Because I mean, how do you ask, do you have a good photographer? And they say yes. I mean, is there— do you know if there's a good way to kind of come about that?

Examples.

Okay, show me examples.

Show me examples. Yes, I have a professional photographer. Great, show me the example. Yeah, what do you have? Okay, you know, and I mean, the sad thing is, no offense to real estate agents, they're real estate agents. They wouldn't know what a good photo is from a bad photo, to be quite honest with you, unless it was just, you know, just an ugly photo.

Sure.

You know, for us, I have different groups that I'm associated with on Facebook. and it's just real estate photographers, and we're putting our work up there all the time. Please critique me. What can I do better? What can I do? At the end of the day, it's not a Picasso. I'm not shooting, you know, in what's called interior architectural design photos.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's a totally different ballgame. I'm shooting real estate. You know, pictures go up, house sells in 24 hours, pictures come down, You know, 30 days later, right? Yeah, it's rinse and repeat. My thing is with them, you know, they're going in with a great listing presentation, and I'm just an integral part of it. And but they need to have examples, and they show them examples what virtual staging looks like, because even though people can go in and And, and I do love real staging in a house, especially as a photographer. This house right here is staged. No one lives there. It's beautiful.

Sure. So that was all furniture that was brought in, right? Yeah.

But I can also put virtual furniture in a space and it looks like it was there when I photographed it. Cool.

So it's actually cheaper, as you say, it's a whole lot less expensive for you to do that than have someone bring in the furniture, right, themselves.

I can do, um, I think we're charging like $45 or something like that per image. And that's the great thing, per image.

So you can do it on ones you want and ones you don't want.

That means if I have multiple rooms that are in that image, all those rooms get staged. To where if you hired a stager to come in, it's per room.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so they could, for a few hundred dollars, they could stage the entire house, game room, all the bedrooms, master bedroom, kitchen, everything. We could put refrigerators in there. If you— we could put a stove, stainless steel stove. Maybe it doesn't have one, but you're going to put one in there. And hey, the stove didn't come, it was on backorder. what can you— can you put a stove in there?

Absolutely.

We've done that.

Put refrigerators, uh, outdoor kitchens. We, we can do all that.

Wow, it's amazing.

One of the other cool things is we can actually go in there and virtually renovate a space.

Like add sheetrock and—

Add sheetrock, color, and everything, everything. And make it look like it was complete. Like, like a kitchen. It's an old kitchen. They go in there and they completely renovate it digitally. To show you what it could look like.

Yeah.

And it's a lot cheaper to do that. And I mean, agents just have to get creative.

Yeah. You know, so, well, and so we, we have, I know we have agents like from across the country, even like some international ones like that listen to the show. Like, how would they find a photographer like you? What's the best, I mean, and like, not just like, how do you go looking for one, but like, once you find, how do you sort of weed through?

You can, You can definitely Google, and— but I probably wouldn't, you know, rank on search engines.

Uh-huh.

But my thing is always word of mouth, you know. Uh, we do advertise, we advertise in a magazine, uh, we do have an IG account, uh, Facebook account. We heavily post on, on Instagram, um, but word of mouth is, is how people find me. Now I pay for that though.

Yeah.

Yeah, I pay for that word of mouth, you know, because what I'm doing is I'm saying, you know, Agent Q over here, hey, this is how, this is how we, we get new customers, is, is you go— and it's, it's kind of like an ongoing joke— please tell all your friends and family that are your colleagues in this business that you love my work. Yeah, you don't love my work, please don't say anything.

Sure.

Yeah, and I kind of laugh, but you know, I tell them, hey, if you love my work, this is what you do. Tell your colleagues in your office, come to michaeljstolte.com, give me a call, whatever. We're— when they buy from us, we're going to give you 20% off, right? So, and then I, I go even further, uh, uh, you know, with that you can take that 20% and you can save it. And if you get 5 20% off, what is that? It's 100% and a free shoot.

Cool.

Yeah, you know, valued at $150 plus tax. It's easy. I do that stuff all the time. Uh, Dee Oliver with, uh, JLA, I called her today and I said I need a house to photograph my team. And I was in this house I said, I love this house. It's great. It's over in Memorial. I said, can I use it? She goes, you know, need to, need to contact the customer. So I'll tell you what, I'll give you a free shoot. I'll barter, you know, I'll barter a little bit. Yeah. You know, I mean, it cost me a little bit of money, but you know, it is what it is.

Yeah.

I'll take my time and I get what, what I want.

Right.

You know, so, but we use a lot of model homes, things like that. There's plenty place up here in Conroe that we used off of League Line Road, uh, took some pictures there and, uh, our first team shots were there. And then we started growing even more and I'm like, man, I need to, I need to get new team and headshots. So, but we do, we do professional headshots.

So you don't even do those yourself?

Uh, who, me?

Yeah, you don't do your headshots?

No, I don't.

Because it's not your, it's not your kind of photography.

Yeah, I, I personally, I, I do architectural and real estate photography. If it's a business, I'll photograph it. If it's a house, I'll photograph it. If it's a person, that's Michelle Butler.

Yeah, you know, well, I think a lot of people don't realize that like there's different skill sets even within photography, you know, like, like architectural home photography, that's its own niche.

Yes, you know, and so like you've got food photography, you got baby photography, you got wedding photography, you got, you know, senior portraits, stuff like— I don't do that. Yeah, you know, I'm like, excuse me, living room, can you turn to the left a little bit? Bring your head down. But, but one of the things that we do is we do this, this headshot and these lifestyle photos for real estate agents. Because even headshots are changing. Yeah, you're not in front of, you know, a little gray background and you're posing and you're leaning over And, you know, now people are doing lifestyle, you know, they're—

I mean, is Olan Mills even in business anymore?

I think so. I think I saw—

They were the bomb diggity of the family photo.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

And you got to print. Everything's digital now.

Yeah.

You know, so it's very different. It is.

Yeah.

I actually think it's really cool that like you can take— I see a lot of people doing this now where they'll take a family photograph Upload it so they can get it printed as a painting. Oh yeah, you seen this stuff?

Oh yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it looks awesome. It does.

Yeah, it's great. It's like, how much you pay for that? It was $12.

That's right.

Yeah.

Did your did your photographer also sign off on you doing that? But yeah, here's the thing, man. That's that's one of the things that in the real estate world, you know. When a photographer takes a photo and a real estate agent buys the right to use that photo. Because it used to be— it wasn't ever— it wasn't ever explained properly, I think.

So is this like complicated IP law? Is that—

No, this is copyright.

Copyright.

Okay, so when I take a photo, whether it's my cell phone, whether it's a listing photo, it's copyrighted to me.

Right.

The intellectual property.

Okay. Well, that's what I meant by IP.

Right. Right. So the intellectual property is automatically copyrighted by me. I don't even have to submit that. It's just by law, federal law. We used to have a really big problem with real estate agents scraping photos and using it on other listings that wasn't theirs. And I would have customers contact me He says, hey, some other agent, you know, got our phone number and I just sent him an email, you know, very professional, you know, hey guys, take it down. Appreciate it. Please take it down. You know, or hey, if you want— another thing that I don't do because I love my clients, I don't resell, you know, the images. I could, I could make money off of that. Yeah. But I just value my customers more than the dollar.

This actually happens on social media all the time.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Uh, we, we have a, a welder friend Randolph, Mr. Weld. Uh, he makes these really beautiful, uh, roses, flowers out of metal. Yeah, right. He takes pictures of them, he sells them online, all this kind of stuff. Well, so like he was making all these pretty things. Well, these other welders who didn't want to take the time to make them that felt like they could started scraping his photos and putting them on their site and saying, hey, we, we sell these, and then like doing it at a reduced price from when he was doing it. So he's just, he's just started watermarking everything.

Yeah.

You know, and like, it sucks that you have to do that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So because people, people don't have the integrity or the ethic to go, I'll just go take my own photo.

In the, in the day and age of digital photography and everything, everything's online. Yeah, you can screenshot it, you can do whatever, you know. I mean, people don't understand that there is a copyright law. And they have to have permission. Yeah, to use it.

I mean, don't people remember Napster? Come on, people.

Well, no, and I've actually, I've actually been guilty of this. I mean, I used to like take people's insect photos, which are really difficult photos to get, and put them on our stuff. And like, I learned my lesson when somebody reached out to me and was like, hey, like, that's actually my photo. I forget where I got it. Um, but it was, it was like in the early days of like Facebook and Instagram and all that kind of stuff. And I was just like, oh, here's a cool Right on Google, you download it to your computer.

Here's the thing though, there's a fingerprint and it's, and it's in the, it's in the data.

Yeah. And it's very deep, like the metadata.

Metadata.

Yeah.

You know, and they can go in there and it's got like every one of my photos that goes out. It has, uh, where I shot it, how I shot it, and it has my name. And, and now There's big issues with MLS boards, Houston, stating that if a photo gets uploaded to their website, then they're the copyright. And I'm like, no, that's not the way that works. No, it doesn't. They try, right? But that's— and they also scrape the data. That wouldn't hold up in a court of law. It wouldn't. But you know, you look at I look at it like this. It's like, what are you gonna do? Well, right now, Zillow got sued by a big, uh, uh, virtual tour outfit up north, and the virtual

tour company won.

Wow.

And set precedent over Zillow. I'm like, wow, that's crazy. Because what they were doing is you had zillow.com, but you had this, this home section to where it takes a photo and it puts a dollar value on the item and they were making money off of that and they didn't have the photographer's permission. So they got sued and they lost.

And I know this is probably like, but this is just interesting to me. So on homes that aren't listed, I know that like on certain platforms, and I think Zillow is one of them, I think Trulia does this too, where they will actually leave up photographs of your home even though it's not listed, right?

Yeah.

And like, I pulled up, I pulled up my house one day and I was like, what the— who gave you permission to put up pictures of my house? Yeah, you know, like I have no recourse.

See, in the— well, I mean, I mean, you do.

I'm sure I could fuss at them, but I mean, like—

You could, you could say, I'm the, I'm the homeowner, I want the pictures taken down. Yeah, you know, or you can find the agent or whatever and ask the photographer to go do that.

And really, do they have to do it? I mean, like—

No, not really. Yeah, see, that's the thing. You don't have to, but it's up there.

It'd be the polite thing to do.

It would be the polite thing to do. Yeah.

Well, most people I know are polite. That's a lie.

Just saying.

I'm just throwing that out there. I was being facetious.

Especially the people at Zillow.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Take my pictures down before I excoriate you online.

I'm coming after you, Zillow.

You know, every week.

My name is Craig Williams.

I'm coming.

Yeah, with all of the brute force of the Homeowner Show.

Right, right. But you know, at the end of the day, when it— when you have these photos up there, and you do— like, I have photos on my website, and if the homeowner found my website, oh, that's my kitchen, they can ask me to take it out. Now, they have really no Recourse, right? You know, to do that, but it is the polite thing to do. You have a new homeowner and if you have a 3D walkthrough or, or, you know, some type of virtual tour walkthrough of the entire home. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's not their furniture, but it's the layout.

Yeah.

That's not okay.

Go ahead and take it down. You know, I mean, it doesn't need to live in cyberspace 24/7, 365, right?

Forever.

Yeah. I kind of feel like you're in a different position where like, You were invited in. Yes, to take the photo. Like, that's what you were hired there to do.

That's great.

I didn't ask Zillow to do anything. Yeah, you know, because I bought the home, you know, after those photos had been taken. That's my house now.

Yep. And you can actually request those to be taken down. And, you know, once again, if they're nice, they can do that. Yeah, you know, unless you want to get lawyers involved and things like that, then it costs you Money, you know, and I understand why they're up.

I mean, they're trying to keep that data. Sure. Because they want to have, they want to have the record of like, this whole house sold for this much back then. And this is what it looked like. And I get it. Right.

Right. Well, you can, you can go back to exterior shots of the home, right? You don't need the interior shots of the home, right? Because I mean, there's plenty of times when I'm out You know, when it was hot and heavy with 360-degree, you know, panoramic photography, uh, I would be in the middle of the street photographing a house and we pointed out the house and then we turned to the right and we pointed out down the street, turn it to the right again. Now we're looking at the neighbor's houses across the street because it's 360.

Right.

Right again, back the other way down the street. Right again. Then we're, you know, back to our first image. I was out doing that and I had a lady come out and yell at me. You know, I want to call the cops. Okay, public street.

Good luck.

You're just— yeah, but at the end of the day, what do you think Google's doing?

Right.

And that's what I tell them. I'm like, expectation of privacy. Okay, in your backyard, you have an expectation of privacy.

Sure.

In your front yard, you do not, right? It's completely visible for the public to see. So, but people are still wary when you have a person with a camera taking a photo of the front of their house.

Which, you've been to my place. I mean, like, take all the pictures from the street you want.

Yeah, yeah, you're not going to see a lot.

Knock yourself out.

Yeah, but in, in residential neighborhoods it's Glenlock Farms or, you know, you know, wherever. Yeah, um, everything's visible out there. You know, it was funny, that lady that, uh, that come out shaking her finger at me, literally 2 months later I photographed her house. I remembered her. She had—

she—

no, her memory was like zero.

You were probably like 50 finger wags.

And, and I was—

that's right.

Yeah, I was telling I'm like, yeah, she's the one that came out yelling at me saying she was gonna call the cops. And she's like, really? Well, we won't mention that.

Yeah, that's right. Let's not bring that up.

Exactly, exactly.

But I've seen, you know, I've seen a lot of stuff in, in this. And I mean, really, after 18 years, nothing so far has made me scratch my head. But, you know, when I first got into this business, I'd walk into people's houses and they had dirty dishes in the sink and they had this, that, and the other. And here I am putting the dishes in the dishwasher or what, you know, trying to help out. And I'll, I'll, I'll go the extra mile and I'll move something.

Yeah.

But I'm not moving furniture. I'm not restaging your house. That's not my job. My job is to, you know, take a photo of it. That should be done before I get there.

Right.

Because I'm the end result. That once you get those photos, it should be 100% ready.

You know, so when you're, when you're not in a hot market like we are right now, does having that, that team, like the real estate agent, the stager, the photographer— I don't know who else would be involved at this point, but like those, I would imagine those 3— that's got to be pretty crucial for the listing.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I want to use the Lucia Clark team. Miranda on that team, she's a real estate agent, but she also does that. side hustle is she goes in and she stages homes. So when I walk into one of their homes, I'm like, yep, this is a Miranda, you know, staged home, you know. And it's funny because it's— I'm starting to see the same staging items. I'm like, hey, there's the fruit that someone took a bite out of. And it's styrofoam. So, but, um, but yeah, they're perfectly— they're, they're immaculate, they look great. Sometimes you just walk into a house and you're like— Kimberly did one a few weeks ago and she— no lights.

Oh no, goodness.

It was a rundown house.

Mm-hmm.

It was a shack.

Wow.

You know, you're walking around, you're feeling the house move because it's on pier and beam and it's It's not really steady. You know, she took pictures. She's like, oh my goodness, you know, uh, this is what you made me go shoot? I'm like, hey, they picked you.

Sorry.

Right. But, uh, but she like walk around with like a light ring or something, or—

Well, you know, we— the way that we photograph, it's not, you know, just taking a single picture and we're done. You know, we're taking multiple shots at different, uh, exposure values.

Mm-hmm.

So, and then our last shot is our flash. So we have, um, a Godox AD200, uh, flash. I think Michelle has a regular flash, but it's all off camera. It's not on the camera. It— we, we don't flash like your typical flash. Like if I brought up my cell phone, that flash is right there and it's pointing at you to illuminate you. We're pointing it at the ceiling to bounce light. And then the being a pro is when you get into a media room that's painted black, you know, on top of high schools, their ceiling, their roofs are all black. Composition roofs are darker color. Why? Because it absorbs heat, right?

Mm-hmm.

Same thing with black paint. It absorbs the light. It doesn't bounce. In this room, I could pop a flash and illuminate this whole space, you know, quarter of a power, right? But it also depends on all your settings and things of that nature. Real estate agents don't know that, you know. So when I photograph a final image, it's 3, 4, 5, 6 different clicks of the camera.

Mm-hmm.

And that creates your final image that the editor, you know, will take and blend and make look You're making us feel self-conscious about our lighting here.

We need to get it adjusted, Kev.

I know, I know.

It is what it is.

Y'all's lighting is great.

All right. Okay.

Well, listen, we—

this has been really good. You've given us a whole lot of information. But I don't think I adequately prepared you for the one piece of information that all of our listeners are looking for.

That's right.

That's right. So before you get away, okay, you have to be prepared. You're not gonna be prepared for the final 4. So this is the final 4 questions that we ask each and every one of our guests. You ready for this?

I'm ready.

Okay, here we go.

We'll see. Yeah, we'll see.

Right.

We're gonna start off.

So next, here we go. What is the must-have tool that you won't leave your house without?

My camera.

Oh. For you, it has to be the camera.

It has to be the camera for me.

Yeah, that's right. And okay, so this is really interesting. Uh, so I've got a buddy who's a, who's a photographer, uh, not real estate, but a photographer in general. And, and he gets a question— you, you probably get this question a lot too— he's like, what's the best camera for me to buy? Those sorts of things, right? And, and I love his answer. His answer is whichever camera is in your hand, right? That's the best camera. Yeah, whichever one you have in your hand. Because that's the one you're going to get the shot with. Right.

And that's the thing that, you know, when I leave my house, I always have a camera with me. And it's not, not your typical DSLR. Always have a camera.

Sure.

You got a cell phone, right? And they take phenomenal pictures.

They do.

Yeah.

And you can buy editor, you know, editing software. I have Photoshop on my phone. I have Lightroom on my phone, you know, so I can be able to go in there and edit that photo. Everything is enhanced. Everything, you know, people have to understand that. But my thing is, I always have a camera when I leave my house.

Okay, cool.

All right, second question. And we, we asked this question a variety of different ways. But really, it's what's a job you walked away from? Maybe what's a project in your house you walked away from? But really, what I'm most interested— I'm going to switch it up Just a minute.

Okay.

I want to know, has there ever been a real estate photography job that you said, I'm not going to do that house?

There's a house over in Channelview that I walked into, and it was— I thought I'd find a dead body. Oh, gosh. You know, I— the only time I walk away from a job, if it's just pouring down rain, I can't do it.

Okay.

You know, I mean, there's always a way to get around something, you know, unless they're just— you know, I'm really open and honest with my customers. And yeah, I was at— I was at a job in, in Spring off of Cypresswood, and poor lady She had 15 dogs.

It was—

it was— the home wasn't ready at all, you know. And I mean, there was boxes everywhere. There's a kennel in her breakfast room, you know, dogs in and out. And I'm like, oh my goodness, you know. Uh, I don't think I've ever walked off a job.

Okay.

But I do have compassion for, for those And I, and, and I was kind of blunt with her. I said, and this is, you know, once again, pre-pandemic. Um, I mean, right now you can put lipstick on a pig and sell it, but at the end of the day, I, I sit there and I said, okay, this is what we need to do. And the lady cried, you know. I said, this is what you need to do because you want to put your best foot forward.

Right.

And if I take the pictures right now, here's the thing. In real estate, it's not about just leaving, you know, passing. I see ugly photos and I move. It's you're losing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. And you're leaving it on the table, right? Because what happens is you're longer on the market, then you're having to reduce a couple of grand, $5,000, $10,000 depending on your price point. And if you have terrible photos, you're doing the, the seller a disjustice right there. You're, you're taking money out of their pocket.

Yeah.

And you're— and, and sellers, you're letting them do that, right? I mean, if you have a real estate agent that's not willing to spend the money on professional photography, and I mean good photography for your house, and also you have to put in the work and make your show— make your home show ready, then get another agent.

Mm-hmm.

You know, your agent's not your buddy. Your agent is a contract between you and a professional. And if that professional doesn't tell you the hard stuff that you need to do when you list your house, when you list your home, it stops becoming your home and it becomes a house.

That's true.

And you have to separate that.

Yeah.

And I know, and it's a very emotional purchase because your babies were born there and they grew up there or whatever. And you have all these memories, but at the end of the day, it's still an investment and you have to separate that.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Uh, by the way, um, your buddy, uh, Josh Kaysinger just chimed in. I just need, I need to tell you that he just, he just chimed in and said, really, by the way, did you know you're talking to someone famous? Because, yeah, because you, you climb up on his roof every single year. That's what he says.

So yeah, let's, let's see if I can just want to pop one of these.

He also outed you as Santa Claus.

Yeah, exactly.

He did out me as Santa Claus. You know, I had a lady the other day, she asked me, she goes, hey, do you play Santa? I looked at her and I go, Are you calling me fat? No, no, no, no, no. It's the white beard.

Yeah.

So I'll tell you another quick story. Snapchat has this old man filter.

Oh yeah, I've seen it.

Doesn't work on me.

Does it make you look younger?

I don't know. No, it makes me look fuzzy. That's what people say. You know, they're like, hey, it's kind of fuzzy there.

I need to try this thing out.

I've never been been fuzzy. So this is one of the cool shots that I did last year. This is me eating a cookie. I have another gal taking a selfie and another guy next to me drinking cocoa. I'm gonna put that up there. See if—