This journey began when I was fired from my job at a yogurt store at the age of 17. I got lost and ended up buying a cheap drone and messing around with it. That drone led to some small real estate shoots for friends. Those buds led to larger buds.
Within a few years, I was running Lumara Media, a national production company that provided footage that appeared on Netflix’s Selling Sunset, CNBC’s Listing Impossible, and somehow MrBeast’s main YouTube channel.
Over the past decade, my team has acquired over $50 billion in real estate across luxury residential, global resort, and institutional portfolios for clients such as Blackstone, Greystar, Toll Brothers, and Lennar. I’ve had a front row seat to how top agents and developers are thinking about content, how much they’re willing to pay for it, and how those expectations are changing.
I share this because over the past few years I have been watching something unfold that most agents may not have been able to fully process yet. And I decided that rather than protect the business I had built, I would build something that I believed would replace it.
Changes that could not be ignored
Around 2021, when the coronavirus pushed the entire industry toward virtual tours and everything going remote, demand for digital content exploded. Business was good. But I began to realize that there was something underneath.
3D home scans are getting even clearer. AI imaging tools were emerging. The same technology that drives all this new demand is also better at replacing the people who make it happen.
We shifted Lumara to more structured work with longer-term contracts and larger clients. It wasn’t because the housing was slow. I felt that the housing side would not need someone like me for a long time.
That feeling never went away. If anything, the sound got louder.
The economy is already upside down
This is what is happening on the ground.
The cost of professional quality content is collapsing. Five years ago, a polished listing video cost between $800 and $1,500. Now, talented teenagers armed with gimbals and free editing software are producing viral content that rivals the thousands of dollars agencies used to charge.
At the same time, agent expectations have changed. They don’t want to coordinate schedules with photographers. They don’t want vendors on-site during client walk-throughs. They don’t want to wait 72 hours for deliverables.
They want content fast, they want it affordable, and they’re finding ways to get content without hiring people.
According to the National Association of Realtors, 73% of sellers say they are more likely to list with an agent who uses video. But most agents still don’t do it consistently. Friction is too high. Costs seem unpredictable. The process takes too long.
The gap between what agents know they should do and what they actually do is exactly where AI seeks to intervene.
$15,000 photo
My grandfather worked in commercial construction in the 1980s. He once showed me an amazing aerial view of a building he had developed. I asked him what kind of drone he uses.
he laughed. They hired a Bell Broadcast Helicopter. The price for that one image was $15,000.
When I told him he could get similar shots with a $1,500 drone, he thought I was exaggerating. He couldn’t believe the quality would hold up.
I think about that conversation often. Because I’m sure we’ll have the same conversation again. Tools that cost hundreds of dollars today will cost a few dollars within a few years. Agents can upload phone photos and receive broadcast-ready videos and HDR photos with accurate room layouts, professional style, and smooth motion in minutes.
This is not a prophecy about the distant future. The core technology already exists. The only thing that has been delayed is implementation.
I’ve seen this pattern before
I’ve now seen two major disruptions reshape real estate media.
The transition from film to digital has wiped out the large architectural photography companies that once dominated the industry. The company, which had dozens of employees, disappeared within a few years.
Then, with the advent of drones, helicopter photography became obsolete almost overnight. The same shot that cost my grandfather $15,000 now costs $200 more.
Each time, the experts in the middle of the mess said it wouldn’t happen, it would take decades, or the quality would never match. Each time, they were wrong.
AI is the third wave. From what I see, it’s moving faster than the first two combined.
What this means for agents
I don’t think photographers and videographers will disappear tomorrow. However, I think the role will change significantly.
Professional media production becomes a premium service for high-end products, rather than a default cost for every transaction. For most listings, AI-generated content is good enough, fast enough, and cheap enough to become the new baseline.
Agents that recognize this change early will act faster than their competitors. The list will be published on the same day. Eliminate content bottlenecks. Marketing benefits from speed, not the pain of coordination.
But speed is only part of the story. An even bigger opportunity is volume. Most agents treat the content of a listing as a single moment of production: hiring a photographer, taking photos, and posting the listing. That’s not how the top agents I’ve worked with work.
Years of photographing prominent real estate agents has taught me an important lesson. The best ones never stop producing. Market updates, neighborhood walks, behind-the-scenes moments, and client stories. They keep their audience warm at all times, so when someone is ready to buy or sell, their agent is already top of mind.
AI tools make this type of always-on content strategy accessible to all agents, not just those with six-figure marketing budgets.
Get started now. Try out existing AI tools. Virtual staging, photo enhancement, and automatic video editing features. Use it on low stakes lists. Learn the workflow.
This is more important than you might think, as the AI landscape changes overnight. A tool that seemed clunky six months ago may now be special. Agents who stay curious and keep testing discover breakthroughs before their competitors do. Those who ignore the entire category will be left behind for years.
Waiting agents will spend the next few years wondering why competitors are everywhere at once.
Why pivot?
The next ten years could have been spent protecting the existing production model. Traditional real estate media still has money and will continue to do so for some time.
But the tailwinds here are undeniable. Costs are coming down. Quality is improving. Agents need more content, faster. Sellers expect videos. Social media requires volume. All facing the same direction.
That’s why I’m now building technology in this space, rather than protecting what I’ve spent 10 years growing. It wasn’t because I wanted to compete with the business I had built. Because I saw something to replace it.
The model that I spent 10 years building is now being sold. Not immediately, but soon enough that it matters. I’d rather be the guy building what’s next than the guy explaining why I didn’t see it coming.
The shift is already here. Most people just don’t realize it yet.
Ori Harel is the Founder and Head of Product at Reel-E. Connect with him on Instagram or LinkedIn.
