Comment Re:both? (Score 1) 77
Well I do happen to have a rig that can take this kind of picture. Am I allowed to photograph my own property from the air and give the pictures to my agent to include in the listing? What if I have a friend who's selling their house and I want to take pictures for him to give to his agent? What if I really enjoy taking real estate pictures and I have a friend who's an agent and I enjoy going out on a Saturday morning to take aerial photos of properties before we play a round of golf at the club? No money's changing hands so it seems like it would be fine by the FAA's "guidelines".
Also, $500 will get you the whole kit and caboodle these days. That's the price of a low-end Phantom with camera and they're dead-simple to fly. I bought their first model a while back and it's he first multirotor that I was able to fly. All the previous cheap stuff was more a matter of "avoiding crashing" than flying. If I were selling a quarter million dollar property and $500 could get me some aerial shots, that's a no-brainer.
I'm not really sure why the FAA got this bug up their ass about realtors. It's not like they're as bad as lawyers. (To my lawyer friends, I'm just kidding.) I'd think the FAA would want people to pay more for houses. The more people pay, the more the economy grows, and the more taxes are collected. Every government agency should be happy with that.