A shoot over a 14-unit apartment complex raised a question that changed how the math looked on aerial for income property.
The listing agent ordered a standard package, flyover plus approach footage, around $380, standard for the market. The building shot well. What the footage also captured, without anyone planning it, was the roof in enough detail to see three sections of standing seam that had clearly been recoated at different times, one strip noticeably newer. The buyer's inspector flagged it later in due diligence, but a sharp buyer's agent watching that footage before the offer could have opened the conversation earlier, and from a better position.
That raises a question that sits between marketing and inspection, and I think most people on both sides of a transaction ignore it. Aerial ordered for marketing does not carry the liability of an inspection report, but it creates a visual record that exists before the offer. If the footage shows something, and the seller's agent ordered it, and it was not disclosed, the paper trail on that is not comfortable.
The flip side is that a seller who understands what the camera will see can use the same footage offensively. Showing a clean roof from above, showing that the mechanical yard is organized, showing setbacks and grade, those are things that a ground shoot never establishes. A buyer projecting deferred maintenance onto a building they have only seen from the street is working with less information than the aerial gives them, and that uncertainty has a price built into most offers.
The question for anyone ordering aerial on a multifamily asset is whether they have actually watched the footage before it goes into the listing, and what they did with what they saw. Have you ever pulled a frame from an aerial shoot and used it in a conversation that was not about marketing?
