United Country Southern Select Properties is taking a new approach to real estate — specifically on the technical side.
Phil Wilson has owned the company since early 2019, offering real estate and hunting services to clients around the Southeast. Wilson and his staff have started to use drones to assist clients the past few months.
Braiden Carithers, the office manager for United Country Southern Select Properties, received his drone pilot license from the Federal Aviation Administration. He said they made the move to better serve their customers.
“We just felt like we could serve clients better (through drone photography),” Carithers said. “If they aren’t in town to look at the property themselves, we can take a drone up and kind of do a real-time tour throughout the property with that drone.”
Wilson agreed, adding that drone services would be useful in several of United Country Southern Select Properties’ departments.
For instance, in addition to traditional landscape imaging, Carithers can use thermal drones for wildlife surveys on hunting properties.
“We just want to be able to have businesses that complement our other businesses,” Wilson said. “And in turn, create uses or create value to our services for our clients.”
Carithers said the primary obstacle in using drones is the machines themselves — namely, their battery life. He said the thermal drone can fly for approximately 50 minutes before it needs to be recharged. The largest area he’s covered at one time with a drone was around 159 acres.
The other obstacle was the learning curve.
Carithers said he was good with the drone when he started, but he’s becoming more adept with the controls.
“You’re not going to be perfect on Day 1,” Carithers said. “I’ve been slowly getting better at maneuvering it, finding that perfect picture or video for the purposes of the client.”
United Country Southern Select Properties recently added a game recovery service, limited to a two-hour radius around Oglethorpe County. Carithers said he’s completed six game recoveries in the last month, successfully recovering all six.
Wilson said they’ve had a strong reception from clients since the company started using drones, even without a formal marketing effort. He said the company would look to increase marketing efforts early this year.
In addition to those plans, Wilson also said he and Carithers have thought about using the drones to help with search and rescue operations around Oglethorpe County. Carithers said the drones might be more effective at locating missing individuals than typical methods.
“We’re in a public service industry,” Wilson said. “We serve the public, so if we can go assist a local volunteer fire department or DNR, we’re happy to assist with that because our livelihood comes from folks within the area, predominantly, and we want to be able to give back to that.”