so ive been flying for about 3 years now, got my part 107 last year, and ive been picking up the odd real estate gig on the side but its been pretty inconsistent. my day job is fine but honestly i think about quitting and just doing drone work full time probably once a week at this point.

the thing is i genuinely dont know anyone personally who has made this work long term. like i see people online claiming they make great money but its hard to know whats real. i do mostly aerial photography right now — real estate, some construction progress stuff, did a few events. i have a mavic 3 pro and a mini 4 for backup basically.

wondering if anyone here has actually made the jump or knows people who did. what does the actual workload look like, is it feast and famine constantly or can you stabilize it somehow. and is real estate even worth chasing or should i be trying to get into more industrial stuff like cell tower inspections or that kind of thing

yeah i made the jump about two years ago and honestly it was rough for the first six months, not gonna sugarcoat it. real estate is fine for volume but the margins are pretty thin once you factor in your time driving around and editing. the guys i know doing well are the ones who got into inspection work — infrastructure, roofing, that kind of thing. the clients are less picky about cinematic stuff and more about deliverables and data, and they tend to actually pay on time which is not always the case with real estate agents lol.

the feast and famine thing is real, especially if youre in a region with actual seasons. i started doing some mapping work for a surveying company on a contract basis and that helped even things out a lot. took a while to get in the door but once you have one solid b2b client it kind of snowballs. dont give up the day job until you have at least 3 months of work lined up consistently, thats my only real advice

not doing it full time yet but im working toward it. one thing i found useful was just reaching out to local marketing agencies directly instead of waiting for jobs to come through those platforms. the platforms take a huge cut and the clients on there are usually shopping on price. agencies already have clients who need video content so they just need a reliable pilot they can call, way better relationship imo