Photo Cell Phones - A Great Tool for Real Estate Agents

Since Verizon's recent entry into the camera cell phone market, all major vendors are offering this latest trend. In time, the "point and shoot" camera feature will be made available to all average cell phones. This service could greatly benefit a real estate agent. The ability to "snap" pictures of a potential listing and send them to your client keeps the property in the minds of both you and your client.

After taking a picture, options are available that allow you to transmit or use it. You can send pictures to other cell phones or to an online service, where the pictures are displayed in a gallery format. The gallery is an excellent way to organize numerous pictures. For example, if you take exterior and interior shots of several buildings, you can make an individual gallery album for each property. A link to these galleries can then be emailed to respective clients.

The images are created as JPG files, allowing you to copy them from the gallery for a variety of uses. They can be posted on a web site or printed from your personal computer. Hard copy pictures are also available for ordering from the online gallery.

A few catches exist that you should be aware of. To begin with, the reason that phone companies want you to use this service is that phone minutes are charged while you take and send pictures. Each shot expends time while loading, costing you minutes. Additionally, using your phone camera consumes battery power. After I took a series of pictures, I found that my phone lost power by the beginning of the afternoon. With normal usage, my phone usually lasts until the late evening.

Are these pictures comparable to mid- to high-end digital camera? No. But they are adequate for tour presentations. And it is nice to be able to take a quick shot when you didn’t bring a camera with you.

Other coming uses include adding a text message to your camera phone picture. Some services allow you to add sound, but do not accommodate text messaging with each shot. A potential camera service that may prove popular would let you introduce each picture with a voice over.