By Tata Rossi 23 days ago, Apps and Software
Open Homes
Verdict: Despite the fact that Open Homes offer quick turnaround and has a helpful support team, the prices for their services are quite high. They start at $100 for virtual staging and $25/img for basic edits.
Besides, to order their virtual staging or virtual twilight service, you also will need to pay for their Premium Photography service, which costs from $300. They don't accept real estate photos from clients, they only take pictures themselves.
You should be careful when ordering the design of a floor plan, as the team might send it to you without measurements and you will have to pay an extra fee to get them.
After ordering their virtual staging service, you will get access to a web-based furniture and home decor gallery. The team will take photos of empty rooms and then furnish them according to your requirements. The process of adding virtual furniture takes up to one day.
✔ Collaborative partnership opportunities. When ordering the Open Homes virtual staging, you can add other members of your team to allow them to track the progress and add new projects. It becomes possible thanks to the collaborative accounts feature.
✖ This service is an add-on for their photography service. You can order virtual staging only as an add-on when ordering real estate photography services. It’s impossible to order it as a standalone service.
✖ A limited number of samples in a portfolio. You won’t see many samples on the website, which is why it might be difficult to check the quality of the services.
✔ Basic website builder. Open Homes have several website templates that you can quickly update if necessary. You will have access to a variety of basic themes, layouts, and audio options. Using the available templates, you can add custom pages, maps, links, PDF documents, and more.
Open Homes can make it look as if your daytime photo was taken at twilight. If you order their day to dusk service, their employees will add a sunset sky to your photos.
✖ Photos have imperfections and don’t look realistic. Clients complain that some photos look unnatural and poorly edited. The specialists might miss important details. As a result, light might fall under a weird angle or shadows might look overly dark.
✔ Use time-tested software. Their team of 3D CGI artists leverages the latest techniques to apply various effects to your photo.
✖ No information about revisions. If you are not satisfied with the result, you need to contact a manager to clarify whether they can improve your photo. In most cases, you will have to pay extra for this service.
✔ Help with creating print materials. Open Homes specialize in creating brochures and flyers. You just need to indicate which photos you want to use and send a marketing copy. The team will do the rest. They will send you printed materials within 1 day.
Video Tours are perfect for those who want to demonstrate the facade, outdoor and main living areas of a property. To create such a tour, Open Homes also use drones. As for their real estate video editing services, they are quite basic, judging by the way the completed projects look.
✖ No advanced video improving options. As the Open Homes team prefers to shoot and a create virtual tour for real estate by themselves, you won’t get any information about how they edit their videos.
When putting video segments together, they add audio and captions. If you need to perform more complex and creative manipulations, for instance, get rid of noise, it’s better to contact a reliable service that specializes in editing clips.
✔ Shoot aerial stills and video. Employees working for Open Homes will take up to 15 photos and videos with a duration of up to 2 minutes. Their drone operators specialize in FPV drone flying and have thousands of flight practice hours.
✖ High prices. In case you need a video tour, you will have to pay from $500. Aerial shooting costs from $450 for 2 minutes of a video. If you compare Open Homes pricing with the prices of other services, you will see that they are 4-5 times higher.
Add-ons are also quite expensive. If you need to get a video that is longer than 2 minutes, you can pay an extra $250 for 30 seconds.
✔ Suitable for reaching marketing goals. When your video is ready, it will be automatically added to your real estate listing. You can also use an embed code to add it to other platforms. Moreover, you will get its Teaser and Unbranded version. Your video will be available in 7 different resolutions.
The Open Homes team also specializes in creating floor plans designs and Matterport 3D tours. It will allow your potential clients to explore your property from any location and learn more about each room during a guided tour.
✔ Different versions of floor plans. The experts create traditional 2D black & white floor plans, color floor plans, and 3D floor plans. Besides, they provide the floor plan redraw service.
✖ Extra fee for revisions. When ordering a floor plan, make sure to inform the team that you will also need to get measurements, as their experts might fail to include this information. If you ask for revisions, you will need to pay an extra $50.
✖ Listings are stored for a limited time. Matterport “Spaces” will be available online only for 6 months, after which they will be achieved. To publish them online again, you will need to pay $75.
Open Homes editors provide virtual renovation. When working on such orders, they add digital flooring and furniture pieces as well as change the color of the walls.
Besides, they provide landscaping services. In addition, you can ask the editors to remove some objects to make your photos look less cluttered.
✔ Take into account the wishes of their clients. These experts will take photos of your room and renovate them according to your requirements. The team also uses its library of digital items to furnish a room. You can also send them some samples to achieve the desired result.
✖ This service has some limitations. You can ask the editors to change the wall color, replace or remove furniture items, add trees, make the grass greener, or even add a swimming pool. However, they won’t be able to fully transform the room, remove the wall, or add a new window.
✖ Some details don’t look realistic. As most photos are furnished with virtual furniture pieces and decor elements, they look quite artificial and poorly executed. Some users complain about unrealistic pillows while others don’t like light fixtures.
Open Homes also provide a headshot retouching service. You may order individual real estate agent photo or group portraits. You will be contacted by a professional who will help you select a style that fits your brand.
✖ Extra fee for a second location. If you want to get both classic and lifestyle photos after a single photoshoot, Open Homes services will be hardly suitable for your needs. To get lifestyle photos, you will need to pay an extra $150. The same fee is applied if a client needs to change location or include one more person in a photoshoot.
✖ Edit only a few images. After a session, you will get access to a gallery of RAW pictures. You can select only 4 pictures that will be enhanced.
✖ Don’t work at the weekend. The company claims that it’s possible to schedule an appointment on the weekend if a photographer is available. However, if you take a look at clients’ reviews, you will see that it happens rarely.
Open Homes have a team of photographers who will capture facades, outdoor areas, and the main living areas of your home. They also provide basic and advanced real estate photo editing services. However, when placing your order, you won’t know which services are included, as there is no information about photo improving services on the platform.
✔ Fast turnaround. As they state on the official website, clients get photos the morning after a scheduled appointment. If you take a look at numerous client reviews, you will see that most people are pleased with speedy turnaround.
✖ Amateur photos. When taking pictures, photographers don’t focus on the best points of a property. They could take dozens of photos of a bedroom and fail to take a photo of a beautiful view. Some photos are taken from poorly-chosen angles, which results in geometrical distortions.
✖ Some issues with the client service. Open Homes allow its clients to select a specific photographer for shooting real estate properties. However, they can also replace them without any prior warning.
✖ Don’t specialize in picture editing. There is no information on the employees who edit photos on the platform. Besides, here, you won’t find information about photo retouchers. As Open Homes provide basic services, their photographers perform basic photo enhancement tasks by themselves.
✖ Limited geography. At the moment, the Open Homes company mostly operates in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, South Bay, North Bay, East Bay, Napa and Sonoma counties. In some cases, their employees might visit other locations provided their clients pay a travel fee.
✖ Paid appointment cancellation and rescheduling. If you decide to cancel your appointment or reschedule it within 24 hours until the set time, you will have to pay a $150 fee.
The company allows its clients to reschedule one appointment without paying anything. However, if they decide to reschedule it again, they will have to pay a $50 fee.
The company offers both prices for individual services and packages that include several services at once. The cost of packages is quite high – from $800. For this amount, you will receive a pro-level photo session, 3 virtual twilight pictures, a real estate website, and a photo slideshow tour.
The prices for individual services are as follows: photography is from $300, basic editing is from $25/image, a video tour is from $500, the floor plan is from $250, and virtual staging is $100. The price depends on the room area.
Verdict: While Open Homes are mostly focused on shooting rooms, FixThePhoto specializes in photo improving. The company provides day-to-dusk, item removal, sky replacement, lawn retouching, and other services. At the same time, their prices remain quite reasonable. You will need to pay from $1.50 per photo for basic editing.
Like Open Homes, FixThePhoto also provides virtual renovation. Their experts create both exterior and interior design solutions. However, unlike Open Homes, FixThePhoto performs manipulations of different complexity, from changing the texture of walls to adding or removing walls and swimming pools. In addition, they provide a range of landscaping services.
You don’t need to pay for any extra services. Besides, you can test out each service before placing an order.
Verdict: WeEdit.Photos don’t provide photography services, but if you take a look at their editing services, you will be pleased to discover that the list includes more than basic manipulations. Their professional retouchers can perform culling, remove items, tweak colors, apply day-to-dusk effect, etc.
WeEdit.Photos offer a variety of bonuses and discounts to their long-term clients. If you place an order the price of which exceeds $300, you will get a 15% discount. After placing an order which costs $1500 or more, you can get a 30% discount.
Verdict: Hampton Roads specialize in real estate photography, 3D tour creation, virtual staging, decluttering, and other related tasks. They can also add a virtual twilight effect to your photos.
Besides providing these services, they can launch a marketing campaign to increase the visibility of your listings. Similarly to Open Homes, Hampton Roads offer service packages, the prices of which start at $150.
Verdict: roOomy provide virtual staging services and create virtual tours. Unlike Open Homes, the team creates projects based on photos sent by clients. Besides, their clients can select from a variety of design styles and task the team with creating custom designs.
Verdict: Imoto provides photography and videography services as well as develops visual content to help real estate agents promote their listings. For instance, this company can help you create engaging 3D tours and 2D floor plans. Imoto is focused on marketing and listing promotion.
Verdict: Stuccco has a team of virtual staging professionals with extensive experience in real estate. You can ask them to add furniture pieces and decor elements, remove unwanted items, change the wall color as well as edit floors, cabinets, and ceilings.
Whether you order Open Homes virtual staging services or contact Stuccco, you will be able to use a collection of digital elements. You can select suitable options for decorating your rooms. Some clients also use this library as a source of inspiration for creating their own interior designs.
Verdict: PadStyler provides virtual staging and architectural rendering services. Their team includes professionals who specialize in interior design. While Open Homes don’t have a clear and transparent policy when it comes to the number of revisions, PadStyler offers unlimited revisions for those who aren’t satisfied with the quality.
Verdict: Modern Angles, just like Open Homes, provides real estate photography and virtual staging services. You can also contact them to order their rendering services or ask them to create a floor plan or interactive tour. The company also specializes in aerial photoshoot.
As for their turnaround times, they deliver output files later than Open Homes. You will get your files within 24-48 hours after a scheduled appointment.
Verdict: If you have real estate photos, you can send them to VirtualStagingSolutions and ask them to perform virtual staging, renovation, or construction. The company can create floor plans and 3D renders. You will be eligible for 2 free revisions. If you aren’t fully satisfied with the result, you can get your money back by applying for a refund.
Verdict: Tantify provides a variety of services, including virtual rendering, 3D visualization and virtual stagings. Besides, it has a team of photographers, retouchers, and designers. In addition, the company has in-house professionals with a background in architecture and interior design.
Just like Open Homes, it has high prices which start at $200 for 2 hours of shooting. If you are interested in virtual staging services, you will have to pay from $59/per image.
