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How Long Should You Save Real Estate Photos After Delivery?

How Long Should You Save Real Estate Photos After Delivery?

How long should professional real estate photographers save real estate photos after delivery?

In this article, I’ll discuss the importance of keeping real estate photos for an extended period of time, the legal and ethical considerations, and how you can benefit from holding on to them.

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How Long Should You Save Real Estate Photos After Delivery?

When you are finished with a real estate photography shoot, you’re going to have a lot of RAW (or at least unedited) images that you’re not going to send to your client. Personally, if I’m delivering 30 final photos, it’s likely that I’ll have capture anywhere between 120-150 exposures.

There is a big difference between those 150 RAW files that are unedited and the 30 final images that you deliver to your client.

It’s a good idea to keep the RAW, unedited files for at least a few weeks or months incase any major editing changes needs to happen. If a client wants a photo completely re-edited, you’ll need the RAW files to do that.

The final images that you deliver to your clients have a very long shelf life though and you should plan to keep them for the long haul.

RAW, Unedited Files vs Final Images

As time passes the importance of the RAW, unedited files becomes less and less.

If your client is happy with the photos, the final images look great and have been delivered, and the house has sold or at least has been on the market for quite some time, there isn’t much use for the RAW files anymore.

As discussed in the last section, the only real need for keeping RAW images is to have a safety net incase any major re-editing needs to be done.

Your final images that were delivered to your clients are a completely different story though. 

Personally, I keep my RAW files for about 2 months, then delete them all. I keep my final images pretty much indefinitely though. They are worth too much to delete when we’re only talking about storage space on a hard drive or cloud platform

Legal and Ethical Reasons to Save Real Estate Photos

Before we talk about how you can benefit from and continue to make money off your final real estate photos, let’s discuss the legal and ethical reasons to save them.

First, you own the copyright to all images that you capture, unless you signed something saying differently. Saving the images is a very simple way to prove that you are in fact the copyright owner.

Second, you might have a contractual agreement to save the photos for an extended period of time. Check the language of any contracts that you’ve signed and see if there is a time period you are required to keep the photos on file.

Third, and this is more of an ethical reason, houses don’t always sell fast and realtors shouldn’t be expected to save every photo sent to them.

If they didn’t download the images and file them in away in an organized manner, it’s easy to see a situation where they lose access to the photos.

If you decided to delete the photos after a month, the realtor loses access to them, and then reaches out letting you know that they need the photos again, it’s gonna look really bad if you have to say the images were deleted.

It’s also important to note that this exact situation isn’t exactly rare. It’s not the agents jobs to save the photos and they don’t really give them much thought after they’ve been uploaded to the MLS.

Ways Saving Real Estate Photos Benefits You

To say saving photos for extended periods of time is simple to do would be an understatement.

While it would be difficult, or at least sort of expensive, to save every single RAW image you capture simply due to the size of the files, saving the finals images doesn’t take up that much space.

Hard drives are not expensive and your final images are extremely worth the price of buying said hard drive. Check out our article The Best Hard Drives for Real Estate Photographers to see just how affordable it is to have a lot of storage.

If The Seller Changes Agents

If the homeowner isn’t satisfied with the realtor that hired you to photograph the house, they may choose to change to a different realtor.

Rather than this new realtor hiring someone to come in and photograph the house all over again, they may reach out to you and ask if they can use the images that you’ve already captured.

This is basically free money as you can allow the new realtor to use the images for the same cost.

Licensing Opportunities

There are many opportunities to license your photos to people and businesses other than the realtor. This is especially true for newly constructed homes or houses that were recently renovated.

Think about what company or individual did work on the house. Who installed the windows? What about the wood floor? They might be interested in licensing your images for portfolio or marketing purposes.

Check out our article A Guide to Licensing Your Past Real Estate Photographs for a much more in-depth read on the various ways you can extend the life and income potential of your real estate photos.

Recommendations on Saving Real Estate Photos

Overall, I’d say it’s a good rule to save the RAW, unedited files for at least a month or two.

For final images, I would recommend saving them for up to a few years. Unless you’re obligated to delete the images after an extended period of time, it doesn’t cost you anything to save photos and they could be an easy way to make more money.

There are so many opportunities to make more money with your real estate images past just the initial licensing to the realtor for sale.

I’ve been reached out to months and years after I’ve photographed a house asking if I would licensing the photos again. It’s a great feeling just simply sending over some files from a past shoot and getting paid for it.

Additional Resources

If you’re just getting started in real estate photography, check out our Beginners Guide. It’s full of helpful articles and tips that will guide you in the right direction as you begin your real estate photography journey.

You can check out our Gear section as well to see reviews and recommendations on the latest real estate photography gear.

If you’re more interested in other resources that can help your real estate photography business, check out our Business Resources page.

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About author
Matthew Digati is a professional Real Estate and Architectural Photographer. Matthew has worked as a Real Estate and Architectural Photographer since 2015 and has photographed properties and projects all over the United States.
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