In 2014, HouseLens founder and CEO Andrew Crefeld attended an Inman Connect conference in San Francisco. He remembers seeing a flying drone in one of the sessions, and it immediately confirmed his inklings that drones were the next step in real estate marketing.
“We saw the demand in the world at large, and with the innovation of drones, we knew the application would be perfect for real estate,” Crefeld said.
His time at ICSF along with his previous experience in the U.S. Air Force made HouseLens’ next step a no-brainer.
Over the following years, HouseLens tested its drone services in the Nashville, Tennessee, area. Branded as “Drones Done Right,” a reflection of the company’s full compliance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standards, these services are now available to agents across the continental U.S. as of Feb. 18.
Basic package gets you edited footage
Agents can choose from four packages — basic ($299), premium ($399), luxury ($699) and custom. Each package comes with edited HD footage, full integration with a HouseLens video tour and single property pages.
The premium and luxury packages come with a greater number of high-resolution photos and options for custom branding, messaging and contact information.
Once agents place their order on HouseLens’ website, a customer service representative will call back within two hours to schedule the shoot, the company says.
Within two days, one of HouseLens’ 12 FAA-certified drone pilots will film the property and send the footage to be edited by HouseLens’ editorial team. Within 24 to 48 hours, the video will be in the agent’s hands, along with a link to a mobile-first branded Web portal for the listing.
Competing as a ‘one stop shop’
HouseLens’ President David Greenberg and CEO Andrew Crefeld realize they have stiff competition from other companies, but they believe their 24-hour turnaround, fully edited videos and additional “full-course” offerings will be what sets them apart from the pack.
“The interesting thing is that we’re more competitive on the price point, and we’re more competitive on the final product,” Crefeld said, noting that DroneBase’s basic package (which costs $399) “delivers unedited product, which to a real estate agent is fairly difficult to handle.
“We function as a one stop shop — so it’s photos, it’s video, it’s 3-D models, it’s floor plans and it’s drones.”
Kathryn Royster, HouseLens’ marketing director, says that in addition to the fully edited videos and available integrations with the company’s other offerings, the real kicker to this program is the speedy turnaround.
“For real estate agents, that [24-to-48 hour turnaround] makes all the difference,” she says. “We know that once a real estate agent signs that listing contract, they have to get the listing up. And they want to put the listing out there with visual marketing content. They don’t want to wait a week or two to get it.”
