Frequently Asked Questions
Covid-19
While we are still open for business, it is not business as usual for us. We are taking extra steps to protect both our customers and ourselves. Your home should be your safe haven and we want to keep it that way.
- If a photographer is sick they are not allowed to perform photoshoots despite their illness.
- Photography equipment is sanitized before and after each shoot.
- Hand sanitizer is used before and after each shoot.
- Photographers will not be moving/staging any items in the home. Light switches, door handles, and potentially window shades will be adjusted for optimal photo quality with sanitized hands (unless otherwise requested.)
- Masks will be worn by photographers upon exiting their vehicle until re-entrance to their vehicle.
- A minimum 6 foot distance will be maintained from all others.
- We ask that homeowners vacate the home during photoshoots if at all possible as this is the safest option for all parties. This also allows the photographer to perform the photoshoot significantly quicker as it is often a challenge to get just the photographer out of the line of sight of these 360° cameras much less several people.
- If it is not possible to vacate the house, as we understand there are many scenarios where that can be a challenge, then we typically we will identify the room that is cutoff from the 360° camera’s line of sight from the most other rooms. We will photograph that room first and then ask the family to wait in that room until the others are photographed.
- To minimize what all the photographer has to touch, it is helpful if the homeowner turns all lights on, all fans, TVs or any other moving objects off, window coverings pulled back/opened, and doors to rooms that will be photographed to be completely open (typically only walk-in rooms are photographed, so pantries and small closets such as a linen closet can remain closed.)
- If anyone in the household has been sick in the last 2weeks or has tested positive for COVID-19, please disclose this prior to booking a shoot or as soon as it is known. This disclosure doesn’t automatically cancel an appointment but allows us to make the most informed decision as to how to proceed. We do not charge cancellation fees if an appointment needs to be rescheduled due to COVID-19 exposure risks.
- General cleaning of surfaces, light switches, door knobs, good air circulation, and handwashing are all recommendations of the CDC to help keep your home a safe haven from any virus’ and bacteria you and your family may come in contact with. For additional information, check out the CDC’s website.
No, we will do our best to work with you to reschedule your booking as soon as it is safe to do so.
FAQs
Features Offered by tour type | North Star Real Estate Services Custom Tour | Matterport Tour | Zillow 3D Home Tour |
| CUSTOM BRANDING OPTIONS | X | X | |
| ABILITY TO SHARE HYPERLINKS OR EMBED TOUR ON YOUR WEBSITE | X | X | X |
| MLS COMPLIANT | X | X | X |
| PROFESSIONAL HDR BRACKETED PHOTO QUALITY | X | ||
| GOOD HDR PHOTO QUALITY | X | X | |
| ABILITY TO EDIT PHOTOS | X | ||
| ABLE TO CAPTURE THE OUTDOORS | X | ||
| REQUIRES PHOTOS TO BE TAKEN EVERY METER OR SO | X | ||
| FULLY CUSTOMIZEABLE | X | ||
| COMPATIBLE WITH POPULAR VR HEADSETS | X | ||
| GOOGLE STREET VIEW PACKAGE OFFERED | X | ||
| ONGOING/INDEFINITE HOSTING PACKAGES OFFERED | X | ||
| 6MONTH HOSTING PACKAGES OFFERED | X | X | |
| PRIORITY ADVERTISING ON ZILLOW™ & TRULIA™ | X | ||
| PRIORITY ADVERTISING ON REALTOR.COM™ | X | ||
| PACKAGE OFFERED FOR BUSINESSES/NONRESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE PROPERTIES | X | ||
| GUARANTEED 1 BUSINESS DAY TURN AROUND TIME | X |
Not every tour type is suitable for every client. One client might be doing a for sale by owner property listing in which priority advertising spots on popular websites such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com my push them to choose the Zillow and/or Matterport tour options. A client who is listing through a realtor who is going to be promoting their listing and has their own website might have better success with a higher quality custom tour which doesn’t cost hardly any more and others opt to cover all their bases and purchase all three tour types to maximize their properties online visibility.
We also have commercial clients who are looking to have their 360° virtual tour hosted online on an ongoing basis in which case they would be seeking an option that includes affordable hosting with our custom option. Since the other two options are designed to go offline once the property is sold, they’re not designed by Zillow or Matterport to be affordable to host indefinitely.
Yes! We offer discounts for signing an exclusivity agreement with us. Our agreements include flexible terms and complimentary first sessions to ensure you’ll be happy with the service we can provide at no risk to you. We are happy to entertain arrangements that are beneficial to all parties, let us know what will work best for your workflow.
Contact us to find out more!
Yes! Remember, a picture says a thousand words and you’re going to want to be sure your property says the right words to your buyers. We’ve put together a checklist that we feel contains very easy steps to get your property photo ready without expending too much time or effort which we all know equals money.
If you feel your property needs more help than the checklist provides, contact us and we can arrange some very affordable consulting services.
This is a tough one to answer because each property is unique but as a general rule of thumb, we budget the 20 minutes* per 1,500sqft per service. For example, if you have a 3,000sqft property and you order a 360° virtual tour, still photos, and a floorplan, we would budget 2 hours for your appointment.
*This estimate can go up for very closed floorplans or multiple floors and lessen for more open floorplans. Properties with unique exterior features such as a lake front property will also require more time.
Keep in mind, for as much time as a photographer spends at your property, they spend on average 3-4 times that amount of time editing and building the virtual tours on the back end so that you can receive a high quality product to best market your property.
In addition to the time spent on the photography, there are other costs associated with travel time and expenses to get to each site.
HDR stands for high dynamic range. The short explanation is HDR is a technology that improves the range of color and contrast in a digital image and bracketing is the technique of taking multiple photos in succession at different exposure values. These photos are then layered together to create a single photo with the dynamic range of all the photos combined allowing for a much higher quality photo than what a single photo could have on it’s own.
If you’re interested in the techy details, checkout THIS article by Anton Gorlin over at ExpertPhotography.com.
We do not charge a mileage fee within our primary service area which is a 25mile radius of Isanti, MN. For every mile outside of that radius, we begin to charge a $0.50 per mile fee to help cover our photographer’s time and associated travel costs.
Contact us
We’d love to hear from you. If you have a question, most likely others do too, and we like to hear all of them so we can add them to our FAQs to provide as much useful information to our clients as possible.