A million-dollar listing is judged in the first five frames. Buyers on a phone decide whether the house is in their league before they read a word of the remarks. The set has to look like the price.
This is the set we build for luxury listings in Comal County, New Braunfels, Garden Ridge, and San Antonio.
The stills
Start with the hero. One wide establishing frame that shows the house, the lot, and the light. For Hill Country and acreage, that frame is almost always aerial. For an infill estate in Alamo Heights or Terrell Hills, it may be a ground shot from the street or the motor court. Either way, it has to carry the listing on its own.
Then shoot the architecture, not a room tour:
• Front elevation and approach
• Rear elevation and outdoor living
• Pool, outdoor kitchen, and view corridors
• Primary suite and bath
• Kitchen and living, shot as one volume when the plan allows
• Two or three secondary rooms only if they change the story (office, media, guest casita)
• Details that signal quality: millwork, stone, fixtures, a staircase, a fireplace
Twenty-five to forty finished stills is enough for most $1M–$3M listings. Eighty photos of every closet does not help a buyer. It signals that no one edited.
Aerial
Use aerial when the lot, the roof, the relationship to a creek or fairway, or the size of the compound cannot be read from the street. One high establishing shot, one lower oblique of the rear, and two or three context frames is a complete aerial stills set. More than that is usually vanity.
Do not fly if trees, power lines, or a tight lot make a clean frame impossible. A mediocre aerial is worse than none.
Video
A 60–90 second property film is enough. Open on the approach or the aerial, move through the main living spaces, land on the outdoor living or the view. Music should sit under the picture, not on top of it. Deliver a horizontal file for YouTube, the broker site, and the listing presentation — not a vertical social cut as the master.
If the house justifies it, add a separate vertical cut for Instagram or a listing reel. That is extra, not the core deliverable.
What we do not pad the set with
• Twilight shots on a house that does not light well
• Drone circles that never settle on a composition
• Interiors shot at noon with every blind closed
• Floor-plan overlays and motion graphics unless the agent asked for them
• Watermarks on files going to MLS
MLS and broker use
Stills should be large enough for a full-screen gallery, leveled, color-consistent, and named in a simple sequence. Video should be a finished file, not a folder of clips. If the brokerage or MLS has a spec for resolution or aspect ratio, we match it. The agent should not have to run the set through another editor.
What this costs in time, not theory
A complete $1M+ set is a planned morning or afternoon on site, then edit and delivery. Rush jobs and “just grab a few from the air” produce a set that looks like the price below the asking price.
If you want the house to look like a million-dollar house, shoot it like one. Request a project review and send the address, the list date, and what you already have.