Drone technology gives new eyes to size

Buzzing like a giant mosquito, the black and white YUNEEC Q500 rises up 20 metres — then 30 — in front of the lake house and then heads out over the water.

With photographer Murray Hadfield at the controls from the ground below, the drone moves up and down, and arcs across the property taking pictures as it goes.

Minutes later, Hadfield shows Royal LePage agent Kim Letto the results on his tablet.

“This is priceless. That’s amazing,” says the sales rep in Buckhorn, Ont. “You can see the granite, you can see the beach and the duck habitat — brilliant!”

Consider Letto an instant convert to real estate’s hot marketing tool. She hired Hadfield to do videos and photos for three listings after seeing the number of hits received by a “very amateur” video of a house done by a kid with a drone.

“For this kind of property with more than 1,000 feet of shoreline, and this kind of view, clearly this is the way to go,” she says of the $950,000, all-season home on a peninsula in Little Bald Lake, about two hours northeast of Toronto. “Most of the buyers are from the GTA and the more information you can give them online, the better.”

Cottages, waterfront realty, rural homes, large estates and highrise condominiums are the focus as a small but growing number of realtors and developers take property promotion to new heights using professional UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) operators.

Hadfield, a commercially licensed drone operator based in Whitby, is doing “huge” business in Durham Region and the Kawartha Lakes with his two, $2,500 quadcopters. He charges $400 for a half-day to provide stills and a video taken by the 2.2-kilogram aircraft.

Pictures from the ground don’t show context, scope or proportion, says Hadfield. He’d been a real estate photographer for three decades when he started Ontario Drone Photography over a year ago.

http://www.thestar.com/life/homes/2015/11/21/drone-technology-gives-new-eyes-to-size.html