I need some insight/advice

This weekend I may be photographing some houses around Santa Barbara county. I used to work for the company I will be taking the photos for, but I left because of the atrociously low wages for what I was doing ($8/hr shooting houses that took at the most 2hr to shoot, no gas compensation.) I still do little odd jobs for them, such as IT work (I started as their IT and then got the location scout position) but am pretty much just their mercenary now.

The owner now wants me to do some location scouting for her again to update her database photos, and possibly be in an editorial in some magazine. What I need help with is I've never actually done any photography work like this and setting my own fee before and don't know what I should be charging. From what she said, an established professional was going to charge her in the $1500 area, and as I am still a student in school I am certainly not at the level to be charging so much.

What I am exactly going to be doing is shooting five or six estates around the county, I will be doing some traveling (Solvang to Montecito to Carpenteria, if anyone is familiar with the area), using my own equipment and meeting up with the homeowners and such. What should I realistically charge for this? I was thinking around $300? I'm a terrible business man, and cannot consider myself a professional yet, so thank you for your wisdom!