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Steven Cross
An award-winning South Australian agent has imported drone 'quadricopters' fitted with cameras to take aerial photos and footage of properties.
According to Anthony Toop, managing director of Toop & Toop in Adelaide, the drones have been the single best investment he has ever made.
"This is a space that's going to be huge," Mr Toop told Real Estate Business. "We've been taking video flythroughs of our rural properties, and photos of some of our bigger suburban blocks and it's yielded some of the most incredible images we've ever used.
"We've had unbelievable reaction so far from both buyers and sellers. It's the best product that we've done.
"We've done ToopTV, we've done 3D video, we've got our own live streaming radio station, we've done all these new things but in terms of bang for your buck, this has given us the most incredible results."
Mr Toop claims the new ToopAir is possible thanks to two recent innovations.
"The cost of the quadricopters have dropped to $750 from the US," he explained. "They have a lot of smarts stuffed into them like GPS and magnetic field, so they're super easy to fly.
"And the Go-Pro cameras are such high quality and so light, as well as being able to be controlled by iPad via bluetooth. So all up, it's cost us a thousand dollars and we're consistently getting images that would usually cost us $10,000 not that long ago."
The drones are smaller than a normal radio controlled plane, weighing in at 750 grams and just 350mm across.
"The only snag we've run into has been that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority haven't caught up with the new technology and we're currently required to have a licence to fly them. As soon as you put a camera on it and use it in a commercial enviornment, you need a licence," he said.
"So while they're working on updating the laws, we're outsourcing the piloting."
A demonstration video of the quadricopter can be seen on YouTube.
- <p>Better not be charging your clients for those videos/stills without all the UAV licences/CASA approval of the phantom etc. Breaking the law if you are</p>0
- <p>Incredible to think this agent would charge his client $10K just for photography. Good images - as video, but won't be high res for printing and signboards, won't be Raw for de-cluttering the usual unsightly stuff behind the shed or the weeds in the horse paddock. Toop & Toop will wear the high costs of Pilot hire in public airspace, so the Vendors probably won't be much better off. What's the client's ROI? Very hard to measure. Competition will keep costs down, CASA will create a new licence fee and exam, public liability insurers will charge for risks unknown - like scaring horses into or over a fence. <p class='break'>&nbsp;</p>A good idea that needs more work. Do that for us all Mr Toop, and we will thank you.</p>0
- <p>"Breaking News"?<p class='break'>&nbsp;</p>These have been available on line for ages!</p>0
- <p>This is great. We have been using this technology for almost a year now with many of our commercial warehouses etc..</p>0
- <p>Yeah great. Pretty soon all the agents will have one - NOT. Imagine hundreds of those buzzing around the suburbs. They obviously haven't heard of Google Earth. The fact is that in the normal course of a day you can't see a property from above, so it becomes academic as to what it looks like from the air. if you really want to look from above - a pole shot works just as well. The general public have about a 10 second attention span with video, so good luck guys, especially with CASA and the bit about "updating the laws"</p>0
- <p>sounds fantastic</p>0
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