Hello Everyone,
I know photography can be expensive, but more times than not you really do get what you pay for. Location, equipment, market trends, experience, and licensing terms are all things that you really need to consider.
If you're planning on using the images somewhere other than Airbnb, you have no choice, you need to use an outside photographer or do the work yourself. $1,000 can get you a decent camera and lens to start with (my first camera + lens was right about $1,500 after tax and I still use it to this day). If you don't want to make that kind of investment, you can get a used one for a fraction of that and it'll still do what you need it to do. Just for the record, photography is not an easy skill to pick up for most people. If the pictures that you're taking with your phone are bad, spending $1,000 on a camera is not going to help - you would be better off spending the same amount of money on photography courses and using your camera phone to it's maximum capacity.
The images are only as good as the subject (ugly property will give you just that - but an ugly property probably isn't landing enough bookings to even consider getting pro photography to begin with). Bad images of a great location can really kill your sales volume and the rate that people are willing to pay for your listing. Most people can get by without pro photos, but most of the time pro photos are going to help your listing get to the next level. Take a look at your market competition - the people who are on the first page are getting booked more than anyone behind them (they're probably also charging more). In most markets, the top listings are either really impressive listings and you simply cannot take a bad photo of them, or professional photography is just one of many marketing techniques that they are using to improve their rental game.
Licensing and experience haven't really been talked about too much in this thread so I'll take a second to talk about them. It takes years to master photography (practicing with your phone regularly counts). You don't just buy a camera and then take amazing images with it. Most people struggle for a very long time. I'm not saying, "don't buy a camera and go DIY...," but what I am saying is keep your expectations realistic. Odds are, you're not going to buy a camera and then deliver $1,000 worth of pro images right off the rip. Experience counts.
And as far as licensing goes, if you book an Airbnb photographer - You Can Only Use the Images on Airbnb. From what I understand, you also don't get to choose which images get used, the Airbnb marketing team does that for you.
Forget all the other booking sites. Forget your website. Forget your social media. Forget any ad campaigns you want to run online or in print. You legally cannot do it. If you find a way to copy or download the images and you use them commercially, you are breaking the terms of your contract via copyright infringement with Airbnb (from what I understand, you can download them but they are explicitly only for personal use).
With a professional photographer, they're very likely going to allow you to do all the things I mentioned in their licensing agreement so the images are WAY more useful to someone who is serious about their listings (not just a casual side gig that brings in a little extra money every month - serious business owners). If the photographer knows what they are doing, you're going to spend at least $500 on a contract like that. If the photographer is young, doesn't know, or doesn't care, you might be able to find it for cheaper, but don't go too cheap because you get what you pay for in photography.
