2022….The Year in Review
Happy new year all - (Well....me and the other 2 folks that might stumble upon this posting probably)
With only 2 posts, the last year has been the least active since I started this thing of ours, and it's certainly been a year of ups and downs in the real-estate photography world. So...where to start?
On an initial positive note, 2022 has seen a 20% increase in my revenue - that's sales before any outgoings just in case the newspapers are reading this. Every single press outlet seems to purposely report revenue as profit when it comes to commenting on the tax-situations of large internet based companies like Amazon or Netflix or whatever. I can have a million quid a year revenue, but if my outgoings are £999,999, I'm only making a quid profit, but the press would still report it to the "thick as mince" public as me basking in the rewards of a million quid a year takings. With this in mind, my expenses have actually rocketed - mostly due to transport (car) costs - resulting in a net difference of very little in terms of what I actually pay myself on a monthly basis. This seems to be the case in the vast majority of UK businesses, with outgoings rising way faster than extra income, resulting in a mass of really pissed-off employees battling to keep their heads above water. It would be tolerable if the wealthiest were seen to be taking a hit as well, instead of basking in the extra, non-required riches they're amassing at everyone else's expense. Never mind eh....it'll all trickle down.
My video offerings have been developing over the year, and I'm a month away from rolling out a shiny, finished product with some style and distinction at a reasonable cost to the agents I work with. The clients have surprisingly veered away from classic, cinema-style productions, & towards the social media feed stuff - in a vertical format for TikTok and Instagram. Vertical format video is actually more difficult to do because of the nature of wide-angle lenses, so I may need some extra gear to create the content. also, many of the properties I shoot have almost zero natural light which makes video pretty difficult without ultra-high end equipment. It makes you realise why professional videography is so expensive, and why some skinflint estate agencies make do with some young'un walking around £1m properties with a mobile phone - the processing algorithm used by the Apple iPhone can often outdo £1000's worth of gear and editing software. The 14 Pro actually takes video quality to such a new level that I considered ditching the camera altogether for video.
In the past 12 months, my client list has thinned out once again, so that I'm in the vulnerable position of being exposed to the possibility of everything ending tomorrow if someone pulls out of needing photography. It happened so suddenly when I was shooting fashion products, but back then I had the buffer of a whole year of turnover to cushion the blow, whereas if it happened now it would literally be the end of the road. The property-sales business seems to be in the process of turning another corner due to rising interest rates and forthcoming falling prices, and once the fire sale of tenanted properties has cooled, it'll be back to cutthroat competition and extreme cost-cutting I reckon. Time will tell. I did have some contact with a big marketing agency earlier in the year with regards to being on their books for architectural work, but it never came to anything.
My favourite property of the year - I'd say that the accolade goes to......none of them. There have been countless £1m plus houses, swish Quayside apartments, countryside mansions with manicured land, and historic buildings awaiting conversion, but nothing has captured my imagination. Maybe it's just the familiarity of the job hitting home at last, but I see every luxury home as a simple technical challenge. Each authentic home cinema room, swimming pool, or palatial entry hall becomes a space to light and shoot effectively, and as quickly as I can.
Worst property of the year - There are many contenders, but as always, it has to be one of the tenanted properties that suck the life out of you. A 7-roomed student let above a restaurant in Durham city centre could possibly be the number one. It's almost always the same thing - a total tip, with tenants that couldn't give a damn about the state of their home. On repeated occasions, I've visited with plenty of notice, photographed what was there, and was told that I had to return to reshoot it because it looked disgusting the first time.
This Year's Plans - I'll probably try and put a few more posts online this year, but if my January workload is anything to go by, it's going to be difficult. Usually I get a couple of months of relative quiet in the winter to recuperate from the 7-day operations experienced at other times, but I'm being pressed into all-week action pretty much straight away so far this year. The delayed price increase of £10 per job is imminent, and will be required to compensate for the huge excess in the mileage allowance of my lease car that could present me with a £5K bill at the end of the 4 year rental period if things continue as they are now.
The "Making Tax Digital" reforms begin to apply to self assessment this year, as well as VAT, so my next tax return will have to declare 23 months of trading due to my current year end date being moved forward by 11 months in order to comply with the new regime. This will mean a whopping double tax liability will apply, so I'd better get saving. On the plus side, it will mean that I'll qualify for a mortgage for the first time in 20 years, so a move into a modest property could be on the cards this summer.
Wish me luck.
