Walkthrough, virtual tour or cinematic film
A walkthrough is one continuous move through the property, about two minutes, gimbal-steadied, no talking head and no music beyond a soft bed under it. A virtual tour is a clickable 360° space the viewer drives themselves, which matters when someone can’t make a viewing in Wandsworth on a Tuesday lunchtime. A cinematic film is produced: a presenter, graded colour, drone over the garden if there is one, cut like a short rather than a listing video.
For most flats under £750,000, a walkthrough does the job — what a property walkthrough covers goes through what it actually includes. Above that price, or where the layout is unusual, a lateral conversion with three separate living spaces in a Highbury terrace, say, a virtual tour earns its place too, and what a virtual tour adds for agents covers when it beats a straight edit. I keep a run of property films from across London for anyone who would rather judge the pace than take my word for it.
Property video prices
The table below has the full breakdown, and full pricing across every service is worth a look if you are comparing against stills or drone as separate bookings.
| Service | From |
|---|---|
| Walkthrough, 1–2 bed | £350 |
| Cinematic film with presenter | £600–£900 |
| Virtual tour (360°) | £250 |
| Twilight exterior film | £200 |
| Developer / new-build package | £1,200 |
| Drone add-on | £400 |
| Agent retainer, per property | £275 |
What moves the number: property size (a five-bed in Highgate takes longer to shoot and cut than a one-bed in Bow), add-ons like drone or a twilight pass, and whether the flat is occupied. Tenanted properties usually need an earlier start or a second visit to shoot around someone’s day, and I flag that at quote stage rather than on the morning.
48-hour delivery, and why it matters
A property listed on a Thursday afternoon gets a full weekend of Rightmove traffic behind it. One that goes live on a Monday does not get the same boost, however good the film is. That is the whole reason the 48-hour promise exists: it is timed to beat the weekend rather than to be quick for its own sake.
It runs from the shoot, not the booking, and covers walkthroughs and virtual tours across every London borough. I’ve turned up to shoots in the City with nowhere to park and no loading bay in sight, kit dragged two streets in October rain, and the 48 hours still holds, because the edit does not care how I got there. Cinematic films with a presenter take four to five working days instead, since there is a script and a grade to do.
What agents should actually buy
My honest view, and some agents don’t love it: for most London listings, video adds less than good stills and a proper floor plan. A buyer scrolling Rightmove at 11pm is scanning photos first. Video is what they watch once they are already interested, not what gets them to click through in the first place.
Where it does earn its keep: anything over roughly £1.2 million, layouts a photo cannot explain on its own, off-plan new build with nothing physical to shoot yet, and short-let accommodation where a guest is booking a stay rather than a purchase. For a standard two-bed in Zone 3, property photography from £180 plus a floor plan usually beats a film on cost per enquiry.
Portal and social specs
Rightmove and Zoopla both accept video, but neither rewards length. Ninety seconds to two minutes is the sweet spot; much longer and viewers drop off before they reach the kitchen. Both expect a standard 16:9 file, so the horizontal edit is what goes up there, not the vertical cut.
Every booking includes a vertical version too, framed for Instagram Stories or a straight WhatsApp share to a shortlist, because that is often where the fastest enquiry comes from. An agent posting a new instruction at 8am on a Monday in Clapham gets more from a fifteen-second vertical clip than from the full edit sitting quietly on the portal.
Developers and new build
Off-plan work is a different job to a standard listing: progress films through the build, show home coverage once it is dressed, and often architectural photography of the block itself for the marketing suite. Photographing and filming new build runs through the sequence in more detail.
Budgets sit closer to £1,200 for a full package, since it is usually several visits across months rather than one afternoon. Aerial coverage from £400 earns its place here more often than on a resale flat, since a new development’s roof terrace or river aspect is often the actual selling point.
Retainers for regular instructions
Agents with regular new instructions can book on a retainer at £275 per property instead of negotiating each job separately. It works best above roughly four properties a month; below that, one-off bookings are simpler for both of us and there is no real saving worth chasing.
What it needs from you: a rough monthly volume so I can hold the capacity, and reasonable notice on each address, ideally two working days, to fit around occupied viewings and whatever else is already in the diary that week.
When to skip the video
A £400,000 flat in a converted Victorian terrace, standard two-bed layout, nothing unusual about the rooms. I’d spend that budget on better stills and a proper floor plan before I’d spend it on a film. It’s not the answer that earns the bigger invoice, but it is the honest one, and it is what I would want telling me if I were the one paying for it.
Send me the address and the asking price and I’ll come back with a fixed quote within one working day. Tell me the property size and whether it is occupied so the visit can be planned correctly first time.