NEWS

How real estate companies use drones

Joel Aschbrenner
jaschbrenn@dmreg.com

Residential properties

Iowa Realty agent Chris Albright generally starts by launching his drone a few houses away and flying toward the home he's selling. "I like to give people the experience of driving home," he said.

Residential properties

He then steers the drone to circle the home and show off any features in the neighborhood.

"I try to look for different perspectives so potential buyers can look at the whole home site: How close to a park are you? How close are you to a school?" he said. "I can show you the whole cul-de-sac. I can show you the entire lot and the homes around it."

Drone footage is more common among real estate agents selling mansions and homes with several acres, but footage shot from the sky also can help market starter homes and townhouses, Albright said.

And it's more than a gimmick, he said. Online metrics show home shoppers will stay on a listing page longer if it has drone footage, and listings with drone footage receive more inquires.

Bill Knapp III, co-owner of Ironwood Homes, has been using a drone for a few weeks to film the luxury homes his company builds and sells.

"It's helpful for people to see from the sky what their entire property looks like," he said. "It's something people don't normally get to see."

Commercial properties

Commercial properties

Footage from one of NAI Optimum's drone flights shows an office building's rooftop HVAC, a delivery truck maneuvering the parking lot, and interstate traffic blurring past in the background.

It may seem like boring stuff to the average YouTube surfer, but to an investor looking to spend millions on a commercial development, the local traffic, the quality of the building and the shape of neighboring developments can help sell a property, said Kurt Mumm, president of NAI Optimum, a West Des Moines commercial brokerage.

"For somebody sitting in Atlanta, Georgia, making that decision" about an investment, "it's important to be able to show them … just how quickly some of these markets are expanding," Mumm said.

It could be enough to persuade an investor to travel to Iowa to look at the property — and potentially make an offer.

Mumm also is using the company's drone (its second since January after crashing the first) to give prospective buyers a sense of what some central Iowa communities are like.

He piloted the drone to hover among the skyscrapers, shooting footage of downtown following the fire at the former Younkers building.

He also is shooting monthly updates of Waukee's nearly $60 million Kettlestone project, a 1,500-acre development that will include homes, offices, shops and parks. The company wants to advertise the project to developers and thinks the video record helps taxpayers keep tabs on the project.

"It's a big investment," Mumm said. "People can see how their money is being spent."

Land and agricultural properties

Land and agricultural properties

Land and farm brokers say drones are a useful and relatively cheap way to show potential buyers their properties.

Peoples Co., a central Iowa land brokerage, traditionally pays a pilot to fly over each of its properties and take photos. Last spring, the company spent about $2,000 on a four-propeller drone helicopter with a GoPro camera and assigned an intern to start filming parcels of land for sale.

The drone equipment costs about as much as a few flights with a manned aircraft, said company President Steve Bruere. The company is still using photos from manned aircraft, but the drone, which can hover, rotate and fly close to the ground, offers a different perspective.

"To get someone to take a second look at a property on YouTube, for us, that could be the difference between selling the property and not," Bruere said.

Peoples Co. intern Alan McNeil, an Iowa State University senior, launched the drone Monday afternoon over a 110-acre soybean field in Bondurant where the company is marketing for new development. He watched the footage on a monitor and maneuvered the drone with a pair of joysticks on a hand-held controller that looked like it belonged on a simple remote-controlled car.

McNeil said he crashed the drone a few times earlier in the spring but quickly got the hang of it.

"Flying it's easy," he said. "I think it's something anybody could pick up."

Register staff writer Donnelle Eller contributed to this story.