so ive been flying for about two years now, mostly just hobbyist stuff but i got my Part 107 cert about 8 months ago and i keep thinking about whether i could actually make this into a side income or maybe even eventually a full thing. i do real estate photography on weekends sometimes for a friend who owns a small agency and she pays me like $150 per shoot which honestly feels pretty good for a couple hours of work but im not sure if that scales or if im just in a lucky situation.

like is there actually consistent work out there for someone without a huge portfolio yet? i feel like every time i search for drone jobs it's either massive companies looking for full time people with years of experience or like $50 gigs on Upwork which doesn't seem worth it. wondering if anyone here has actually gone from hobbyist to making real money and how long that realistically took

real estate was my entry point too and honestly it's still my bread and butter three years later. the trick is you cant just rely on one agency — you gotta build relationships with like 5 or 6 agents or agencies at once because the work is inconsistent. one month you're slammed, next month nothing. once i started doing that and adding in some construction site progress shots and the occasional event gig my income got a lot more stable. took me maybe a year before i felt like it was actually reliable money though, not gonna lie.

the $150 rate is fine to start but i'd push that up as you build a portfolio, most markets can bear $200-300 for a proper real estate package with edited stills and maybe a short video. dont undersell yourself too early or it's hard to raise rates with existing clients later

im kind of in the same boat as you so not super helpful but just wanted to say i've been looking into mapping and surveying work as another angle, apparently the pay is better than real estate in a lot of cases but you need extra software skills like knowing how to process point clouds and stuff in Pix4D or DroneDeploy. seems like a steeper learning curve but worth looking into if you want to diversify