Property film for luxury listings: what agents in Portugal should know

Why film, and when

Photographs show a house; film shows how it feels to move through it. The sequence from the gate to the terrace, the way the sea appears as a door opens, the sound of a garden in the evening: these are what a buyer who cannot visit yet is trying to imagine.

Not every listing needs film. It earns its place for residences where atmosphere, setting and flow are part of the value, and for listings where the agent's own marketing is on show.

How long it should be

For the main film, 60–90 seconds is long enough to walk through the house in a considered order and short enough to be watched to the end. Longer tours have their place for very large estates, but most buyers will not watch them in full.

The vertical cuts are shorter, made to stop a viewer while scrolling and lead them to the listing.

Vertical cuts for Instagram and Reels

Much of the audience for a luxury listing now sees it first on a phone. A landscape film cropped to vertical rarely works: the composition falls apart. Vertical cuts need to be planned on the day, with frames that hold in a tall format.

Signature Film includes three vertical cuts, each with a different emphasis, so the agent can post over several days without repeating the same clip.

Music licensing

Music is the part of property film most often handled badly. A popular track added in an editing app is usually not licensed for commercial use, and platforms may mute or remove the video, or the rights holder may make a claim.

Music in our films is licensed for marketing the property, and we choose it for the house: usually quiet, unhurried and without lyrics, so it does not compete with the images. If an agency has its own licensed library, we can use that instead.

What a property film costs at The Ivory Studio

We can only speak for our own prices. Signature Film starts from €1,600 and includes everything in Signature Photo - thirty edited images and the twilight exterior - plus a 60–90 second film and three vertical cuts.

Estate starts from €2,800 and is tailored to the property: film, stills and aerial, with lifestyle scenes and a short introduction filmed with the listing agent. Additions such as extra aerial and twilight sessions are included in your proposal. Prices exclude VAT. Film is delivered within seven working days.

How film helps win listings

Sellers of exceptional homes choose their agent by the marketing they see. When an owner in Cascais or Lisbon is deciding who will sell their house, the films an agent has already published are part of the pitch.

A film made for one listing therefore keeps working after the sale: on the agent's own channels, in presentations to new sellers and as evidence of how the next house would be presented.

Planning a shoot with film

Film is shot on the same day as the stills, by the same person, and the house is prepared once. We agree the route through the house in advance, and, for Estate commissions, a few lines for the agent's introduction. The best results come from a house that is empty, quiet and fully lit.