Ask the agent
How do I get real estate photography clients with no portfolio?
It’s a weekend, not a permission slip. It’s only chicken-and-egg if you wait for a client to hand you the egg. Shoot the listings in your zip that already need you, borrow one model home for video, and put the work in the message instead of behind a link.
Shoot the listings that already need you
Type your zip into Zillow. Scan for crooked verticals, no drone, price cuts. On a strategy call I ran that search live and found three targets in five minutes, one with a $24,000 price reduction.
Those three listings had an agent attached, a seller getting nervous, and photos that weren’t doing the job. That’s not a practice subject. That’s a client who hasn’t heard from you yet.
Drive there. Shoot one front exterior. Edit it.
Send it to the listing agent. That’s your portfolio and your opener in one message. She isn’t looking at a gallery. She’s looking at her own listing done properly.
Borrow the buildings nobody’s using
Exteriors get you started. Brokers will ask about video, and that’s the part people think needs a paying client. It doesn’t.
Empty new construction. The exteriors of current listings. Chick-fil-A on a Sunday and banks after five for a commercial reel. Nobody has to say yes to any of it.
None of it needs a client, a key or a yes. A bank exterior after five looks the same as a bank exterior you were paid for.
For an interior, one model home from a builder. Ask if you can use it to practice video, and tell him if he likes it he can share it and tag you. One. Done.
Put the work in the message, not behind a link
Now you have the work. Here’s how to show it so the agent doesn’t have to go looking.
One exterior in the DM beats a link she has to click. I was on the receiving end for ten years as an agent: a portfolio link meant I had to go look at it. One exterior in the message meant I’d already seen it. Guess which one I answered.
Keep the rest on a $5 HD PhotoHub site for the broker meeting. Five exteriors and one model home is enough to walk into a brokerage.
The site isn’t for the DM. It’s for the broker meeting, when someone says show me more and you want a link that loads instead of a phone you’re scrolling.
And never say "portfolio" to an agent. Say you’re building relationships with local realtors. One is an audition. The other is a peer.
Building relationships with local realtors is what you’re doing. It’s true, it’s about them, and it doesn’t put you on a stage.
I’m practicing video, can I use your model home? If you like it, share it and tag me.
The portfolio is a weekend, not a permission slip.
This weekend, shoot five exteriors in your zip code plus one model home, and have them on a $5 HD PhotoHub site by Sunday night.
The agent opener scripts
One observation, one question, and the day 3 and day 10 follow-ups. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.
Get the scriptsGet my roadmapStraight answers
- How do I build a real estate photography portfolio with no clients?
- Shoot what needs no permission. Exteriors of current listings in your zip, empty new construction, and one builder’s model home for video. Five exteriors and one model home is enough.
- Should I send agents a link to my portfolio?
- No. Put one exterior of her own listing in the message. A link is work she has to do. A photo in the DM is already seen.
- How do I get a builder to let me shoot a model home?
- Ask. Say you’re practicing video, ask to use the model home, and tell him if he likes it he can share it and tag you.
Related questions
Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.