APPLICATION OF DRONE TECHNOLOGY IN REAL ESTATE PRACTICES.

The world of real estate is changing drastically just like every other professions, new developments, new markets, and new technologies are being seen across industries and real estate is not left out. The internet has already totally changed the game for realtors/estate valuers, land surveyors and allied professionals.

What many might not have realised is that the newest great leap in displaying real estate has already arrived. You may have seen them on YouTube, but remote-controlled drones are currently taking the real estate practice by storm. Marketing a real estate property is one of the most difficult things to do in business today. The competition is brutal, partly because online listings generate most of the leads.

Today, the latest marketing weapon in real estate is the use of dramatic camera drone photography & video tours in online listings. It's now acclaimed as the most important new technology to enter real estate marketing since the internet. By using flying cameras, real estate photographers are producing dramatic, sweeping shots of landscapes, ocean and mountain vistas and seamless fly-around of gorgeous home exterior and taking shots of homes never before imagined, Drones for real estate are quickly becoming the next evolution in the market and now is a great time to consider use of drones for your prime real estate advertising.

There are many uses for drones for real estate:

* Create more interesting virtual tours
* Show local improvement and historic district issues
* Present the neighborhood and surrounding areas
* Conduct aerial inspections of the entire property
* Highlight scenic views, landscaping and curb appeal

Adding drone photography or video to your marketing efforts allows potential investors to see every inch of the property, including pitfalls and problems, at the initial phase of the deal.


Whether it’s to highlight the waterfront view, a gorgeous garden, or a really cool swimming pool, aerial drone photography captures the beauty and the utility of a home far better than ground-based photography or video

As a Certified Real Estate Surveyor & Valuer, Estate Agency(i.e property sales, leasing & acquisition) is just an aspect of your profession while valuation for whatever purpose is another and acquiring a skill or certification in the use of drones can also be an added advantage to boost up your profile when bidding for some specialized valuation exercises like Oil Spillage Compensation Valuation, Oil Rig Valuation, Electric Power Generating Assets Valuation, Road Infrastructure Assets Valuation and so on.

Some few years back, the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors & Valuers (Lagos Branch) held a forum for Heads of Practise and the bane of discussion centered on why multi-national companies here in Nigeria prefer to give high profile valuation jobs to foreign firms. The reasons are not far fetched and the conclusion was that everyone should up his/her game to be able to match up with the foreign counterparts if not 100% but at least by 80% then there'll be more confidence and patronage.

Using drones for valuation or appraisal exercise is similar to the value drones bring to property inspections. These Unmanned Air Vehicles provide a time-efficient, budget-friendly way to capture a birds-eye view of a given location, and the high-quality aerial imagery provides appraisers with a 360 degree view of the entire property in context.

The new technology and its many uses are only beginning to become apparent as it revolutionizes several different industries and trades. Real estate appraisers who resist learning about and applying the many advantages of this new technology may risk being outpaced by their competitors who embrace it.

Agreed, a drone does not necessarily need to replace a human being at an appraisal or valuation inspection but it could be used to enhance it. There are many advantages to using a drone for appraisal practice. The main one is the ability to access hard-to-reach places like mashy areas, mountain top, violent prone zones, hazardous terrains as in the case of oil spillage, those areas could be reached by deploring a drone. The drone can be easily outfitted with specialized sensory equipment like laser measuring and other relevant data capturing gadgets.

Thermal imaging technology for instance will allow real estate appraisers to instantly spot hot loss from a building and assess the cost of better insulation. Areas considered previously unobservable such as rooflines, air conditioning units, gutters, and more, can now be seen using the correct equipment. Not only can these items be observed, but areas of interest can be identified for additional inspection. This can be specifically useful for large acreage tracts where easements and prior improvements can be shown via photographs or video. This allows appraisers to observe and document a property in real-time on the date of inspection and will undoubtedly change the way many properties are viewed going forward.

Drones are relatively inexpensive to use as most drones are powered by lithium batteries which can be recharged for each assignment and one can get a good drone to do most of the above stated for a little above $1000 rather than using a helicopter or an airplane which could be very expensive for an aerial inspection. Pilot availability and weather conditions are just two considerations which affect traditional ways of obtaining aerial inspections. Also, a helicopter and airplane have height restrictions that impede close-up views. A drone can be deployed within a matter of minutes for each assignment and can take close-up pictures of specific aspects of a property or terrain. Even though a drone’s parts will eventually wear out and a crash can set you back, a drone is still relatively economical. The overall cost is dramatically less than the traditional ways of obtaining aerial photographs for specialized valuation exercises.

Not only is drone use for real estate appraisal more cost effective, but it’s more time effective too. Weather conditions used to be a factor in aerial photography, as well as the availability of licensed pilots. And for all the added cost and hassle of using planes for aerial photography, they were hardly as task effective as drones, limited by altitude restrictions that only allowed the bird’s eye camera to see a property so close.

At this point it is no gainsay that use of drone technology in real estate practices is what everyone in the real industry should embrace, get the knowledge and eventually get the certification. It is far better to get the skill/certification yourself to up shoot your profile than engaging a drone pilot on every project you have for the reason that drone pilots charged per assignment/task and that could be pretty expensive. If you have the knowledge then you can do it by yourself and can even be hired as drone pilot by others on there projects once you're certified.

However, one shouldn't start taking drone shots on his/her own by day one. First, it takes many hours (weeks) of practice to learn how to fly and take great shots in 10-minute flights, over and over again.

Second, you have to learn a lot from a professional by attending a training just like the one we're about to organise in our 4th edition of organized live training tagged "Application of Drone Technology in Real Estate Practises". Our facilitator for this training is a Chartered Spatial Planner, Google Incorporated trained GIS expert, a Senior Lecturer in one of the famous higher institutions in Nigeria and a Certified Drone Pilot.

The training shall be aimed at exposing participants to some basic principles of flying drones ideal for real estate practises, surveying and mapping such as creating virtual tours, point of interest camera targeting, collision avoidance and so on using the 3D Robotic, Typhoon H, DJI Phantom 4- Camera drone etc. Thereafter, you may go for the final training & certification with the relevant agency.

So if your job, profession or business plan calls for buying and operating your own camera drone, you need to be part of this training and you can click on the link https:///IyQ1fsi8OPe0AwQwEI4dol to join the Whatsapp group created to collate interested and ready to pay for the training cost participants for more discussions.

Thank you, fasten your seat belt and start clicking.

Kind regards

Akintayo Akinlolu

+2348117949689 or +2348032296562