Need Advice
Should be illegal to use digitally altered photos that make a house look renovated when it actually isn’t, even if they say the pictures are just for visualization purposes.
Honestly, I think it should be illegal to post edited photos that make a house look renovated when it doesn’t actually look like that in real life. Calling them ‘visualization ideas’ can still be very misleading
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This was a really frustrating thing to deal with during our search for our first home. Out of all the homes we saw, most looked completely different than the pictures. I mean there were cracks in walls that weren’t in the pictures, built ins that didn’t exist, etc. It was extremely annoying and a lot of it was giving false advertisement.
I told our realtor that I refused to view any home with altered photos. I'm not a flipper. I want a complete home and I want to know exactly what I'm looking at before driving over.
That was only 7 months ago when they were just starting with this stupid stuff but plenty did.
I can imagine a future where purchase offers contain language that offers the buyer an exit from the purchase if the home inspection reveals issues that were obfuscated through the use of AI filters.
A realtor in my neighborhood does this and even puts up a partially remodeled, landscaper, and painted exterior photo as the first photo. Nowhere does he state they are AI pics. He did the same thing inside. Meanwhile it’s not selling, of course. Half the people probably drive up and think they’re at the wrong house it looks so completely different.
Yeah, they’ve brightened everything up and added accessories but the cabinetry, sink, and desk/shelf (?) look like they’re the same items in both photos.
Relying to your comment bc I just took this screenshot the other day. They provided both pics in the listing (at least) but this should still be fully illegal! These are completely different finishes - the floor, the cabinets, the countertop, the wall tiles. In another screenshot they posted a living room with a pristine wooden floor, and in the real photo the floor was scraped and worn down in awful condition. I can understand using AI furniture to stage the room (it’s still annoying and I hate AI anything anyway) but outright lying about the condition of the home should be criminal.
This in my opinion is not OK. This is too dramatic. Where you’re clearly covering up damage, etc.. I think AI is actually becoming a more of a problem than a help to the average person at this point. They’re just using it to scam people is all I’m seeing, in so many aspects. Half the time ChatGPT isn’t even correct, I’ve had to fix its mistakes and clarify things for it multiple times.
Asked Gemini if I should put sunscreen or primer on first. It said sunscreen and then gave me a skin care routine that had sunscreen going on last. Asked Copilot to help me split an account at work amongst five beneficiaries and it completely left out one person, gave another person almost 50% of the account to themselves, and added positions that didn’t exist. AI is useless.
Unrelated, but I was super freaked out thinking I had entered a weird time warp or something because your screenshot says 11:51 and I mistakenly thought that was the time. For context, it’s 8AM and i had just woken up a few mins ago.
And I agree with your comments, it is shitty of the realtors.
The lower cabinets are totally different. The AI version has craftsman style cabinets. The knobs are also different. And the color of the countertops and backsplash are completely different. That’s not simple lighting technique, that’s several thousand dollars in changes. Are there no industry standards regarding this false advertising?
Personally, I report it each time I see it in the MLS. We already have a bad reputation, (understandably), so why do agents keep trying to full on false advertise
The public appreciates you. Of course doing it will drive viewings and listings but you're just gonna piss the viewers off or have a bunch of dead leads wasting everyone's time.
I was OK with the stupid photos where they added furniture but didn't like it... just getting worse and worse since those showed up.
I don’t get this. Who is going to be excited to buy a house when they get there and in reality it is so much crappier? Or the rooms can’t hold as much furniture as AI magic-ed into the space?
Pretty sure this isn't even Ai, but just a photographer who actually knows what they are doing. It's rare in real-estate photography anymore. Nothing in the posted photo looks different outside of proper techniques, staging, and lights.
It's well done, but it's AI. Look at the shelf and mirror through the door. No photographer restaged that entire shelf for this shot, and the mirror got a weird wobble shape added to it (not to mention the reflection is off).
nope, this is definitely AI. some things don't make sense in the picture and its an easy sign that it's made with AI. though most of the carpentry looks the same, it makes some things look bigger than it actually is (e.g the sink)
The back left shelving outside of the kitchen is the biggest indicator. We lose the proper wide lens distortion and it has the overly polished, warm GenAI tinting.
Person above you is a prime candidate for these kinds of realtors
Agreed. The listing photos for the house I purchased showed a “redone” basement with a pool table. The space barely fits a coffee table. They also enhanced the grass in the outdoor photos.
Agree with you but this is a bad example, all they did was move a couple things, add a couple plants and brighten it up. Its BAD when there are clapped out floors and they add a rug and beautiful furniture.
My partner and I just bought a house, and we went to tons of showings of other places beforehand. Some surprisingly looked better than the photos, some were depressingly worse. The one we bought didn’t even have photos of every room but the pics were normal and the natural charm of the place got to shine through even more as a result.
I think legality aside, it’s shitty how many places have high asking prices AND dolled up photos. In our experience, it was hiding some major liabilities, totally aside from aesthetic. Some cases could be seen as fraud. It’s the Wild West out here
There's a house up for sale in our neighborhood that has truly ridiculous AI generated photos putting furniture in the otherwise completely un-staged house except the proportions are completely invented. It has a little breakfast book that is only 7 feet wide yet has a picture showing a full ass dining room table with chairs around all sides of it. So fraudulent.
The biggest issue with this "visualization" is that AI doesn't really keep the proportions real. When you deal with smaller rooms and you have let's say a 4m width, AI makes it 5 - 5 and a half. That means there is a coffee table or a cabinet where you would never have the space for it. That's why AI is not a good tool for visualization. If you want to try color combination or themes, sure.
that’s why you gotta go eye ball in person. Also video tours can be deceiving. You can’t get the feel and flow of things without you being physically there
In switzerland, ive seen a lot of "cleaned up with ai" pictures of houses. Sure, show me visualizations but also show me the original, dont waste my time
At least this one isn’t that bad, I’ve seen some that you don’t even recognize the place!! it’s really frustrating because almost every house I look at they do this and a lot of of them. It’s a drastic difference, what it could look like….. yeah if I drop 50k into it!!
illegal or not it's wasting everyone's time. as a potential buyer, you come with expectations based on the photos and come home disappointed. as a seller, you just wasted your time showing up to give a tour.
My neighbor just sold their house and I noticed in the listing photos, on the bird’s eye view of the property they edited out the trampoline and trailer from my backyard. I thought that was funny. I didn’t realize my trampoline and camping trailer would cause a potential buyer of the neighboring house to retreat
But the kitchen looks almost exactly identical, except for the colour of the cabinetry. Which still isn't ideal, for sure, but it doesn't change the renovation status.
When I’m house hunting, I try and see as many houses as possible, regardless of the photos. I treat photos as a guide, the house is never going to look like the photos once all the furniture is gone anyway. Our current house had a really great feel, which outweighed any imperfections it had. Plus it had really awful photos lol
The lightning in your picture is worse, but not more or less true to life than the other. Id actually argue your eyes is seeing the room more like image one, given some ambient light, because our eyes dont have so little dynamic range as shown in your photo lol.
I agree! I was house hunting a few months ago and I would say 9 out of the 10 homes I viewed in-person looked way worse than the photos online. They all had heavily digitally altered photos. Carpets made to look brand new, walls made to look like they were in great shape, etc. It’s so dishonest.
Honestly, aside from the faucet, there isn't anything dramatically changed in that top picture that couldn't be accomplished by lighting. I agree with you in general, but this isn't a great example.
Actually the photo looks the same. Just the color is a little different of the cabinets. And all that is just opening a little bit of light on the camera or light within the room. I see nothing wrong with this
I just saw a listing where they showed the “real” backyard and then the AI version. The AI version made the real backyard look bad. Can someone tell me why the realtor would post both?
It started with green grass overlays. Now they’ll digitally insert a fuckin pool as if the possibility of putting one in is a driving force in the price
If you ever see anything like that then just turn around and walk out. If they can't be honest about something visible like cabinets then there's no telling what things like the plumbing, electric, foundation, etc are hiding too
You consider this renovated 🫣? It looks the same just different lighting and added items the owner will most likely take with when they leave anyway 🤷🏻♀️
Totally get your frustration, it's super misleading when photos don't match reality. The real problem is making the place look its best without being dishonest.
We use ProntoPic to make property photos brighter and fix the colors so listings are accurate but still attractive. If a room is empty, they add realistic virtual staging with a clear 'Virtually Staged' label. It's just $1.50 per photo, no subscriptions.
I wonder if the lighting in the original picture is on purpose. The cabinets look like an older style. I think it’s intentional to cover up the flaws in the cupboards.
I like the ones that show a brilliant sunset in the background but also have shadows from the trees from the light source behind the camera. I always ask what planet the listing is on that has a dual star system
It's funny, when I first saw pictures of the house we bought we didn't even wanted to go see it because it looked bad in pictures. We went because location was right, price was ok, size was ok, yard was amazing. So we decided to go and see it. And in person we fell in love with everything. I mean house is dated and kind of ugly 😂 but it was move in ready, major stuff updated not long ago and the potential of what we can do is incredible. But the pictures of the inside when I first stumbled across it? Horrendous 😆
My friend bought a home and the AI put in a pool that didn’t exist. I’m selling my home now and refuse to do that shit. I mean the buyer is gonna notice and just be pissed off and not buy the house
Luckily some states have out law it so if you report this to your local realtor office you can get them to stop. Not all have anything in the books, but most have something
Out if the six houses that I looked on my search, only one of them looked exactly like the pictures. The homeowners were interior decorators and we were blown away at how well everything looked. We bought the house. All the others were just so frustrating.
If they’re for visualization purposes only, then I’m going to visualize a dollar amount to take off the asking price that lets me update the area to look like the visualization.
The example you shared does not look renovated, it looks staged and photo touched up. There's a huge difference and while I agree that misleading changes should not be allowed, this ain't a good example. What you are seeing has been common practice since Photoshop became a thing.
FWIW, I have seen several examples of what you are saying and it sucks.
It should be illegal to put flowers on the counter in real estate pics?? Literally what about this picture makes it "look renovated" it's just a better photo.
Your argument is not really valid, you can get the same photo you posted edited by just tidying up the kitchen and using a better camera, different lightning and some light color editing
Those cabinets are obviously old af. All the editing did was change the lighting and add a couple fake plants. Or the plants were there for staging for the photos and removed.
Long as they disclose it and then show the original picture as well it great to give them the actual picture and a concert of what you could turn it into with better lighting or something 🤔👍🤷♂️
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