Special thanks to Mark Teskey for contributing this blog post.
On March 6th, a Federal judge gave the real estate and real estate photography business an amazing boost. In a landmark ruling, he ruled that the FAA’s mandate prohibiting commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was without merit. This immediately opened the door to using UAVs for all manner of commercial purposes.
At Mark Teskey Architectural Photography, I couldn’t be more excited about this ruling. I believe that aerial property photos and video is going to have an enormous impact on real estate marketing effective immediately. The market has been less-than-patiently waiting for a ruling, and now that it’s out there will be an explosion of aerial property photos in MLS. In anticipation of this victory, we started flying last year to make sure that we’d be fully ready to go when the time came.
So how am I doing it? In other words – what’s a “UAV”? A UAV is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. We pilots prefer that term to “drone” – because there are a lot of unwanted negative connotations and feelings around the word drone. It’s a 6- or 4-bladed helicopter (called a “hexacopter” or a “quadcopter”) that has a remote controlled camera mounted underneath. Though they can fly at great heights and great distances, I’m only interested in up to about 200 feet in any direction from the house. I’ve got a video link from the camera to the ground so I can see exactly what the aerial camera sees. The camera is a high resolution stills & video camera – and the quality is amazing.
Safety is always a concern – for ourselves, our expensive vehicles, and the properties we are flying over. Everything is operated with checklists, inspections, and ironclad rules. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that flights can’t happen due to weather conditions or local hazards.
UAV-based photography is the best value on the market for aerial photos and video. Please contact me at mark@markteskeyarchitecture.com or at (952) 373-1355
(952) 373-1355 to talk about your projects and I’d be happy to get you additional information.
