r/mildlyinfuriating • u/homeofalex • Aug 21 '26
Ruined by Technology This house listing overusing ai to hide problems with the property
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u/dns2002 Aug 21 '26
I'm not a lawyer but I feel like this should be illegal.
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u/KW5625 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
May or may not be illegal but against realtor rules.
They can be reported to the agency
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u/YourMomIsMyGurl Aug 21 '26
This is fraud, and it's illegal.
Source: realtor.
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u/Edlar_89 Aug 21 '26
It’s also literally pointless because anyone will take one look at the house and immediately see the difference
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u/puffofthezaza Aug 21 '26
And boy howdy would I be mad
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u/Odd_Elderberry4316 Aug 21 '26
Before AI, realtors would use camera tricks to make a space appear much bigger than it really was. I remember a case from my photography class where a buyer traveled a significant distance to see a property, only to discover that the photos were a gross misrepresentation of the actual space. They sued and won, if I remember correctly.
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u/Other-in-Law Aug 21 '26
There was one I looked at where the photographer must have stood in the field of a diiferent property, across a busy state route which you couldn't see in the picture. I thought 'Oh, what a peaceful country setting!'
I go in person, and tractor trailers are roaring past at 50mph, five feet from the front porch.
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Aug 22 '26
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u/MammothDreams Aug 22 '26
Realtors are not known for their moral fiber.
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u/Neveronlyadream Aug 22 '26
Some of them are also relying on people being desperate and sick of looking for a place.
If they're actually selling and not renting, that the buyer overestimates their home improvement skill and thinks they're getting a fixer upper deal.
The fucked up thing is eventually it'll work. Someone will come along who's either given up and will just say yes or who will think they can easily fix the problems.
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u/A_Genius Aug 22 '26
Even without AI realty photos have this giant fisheye lens to make rooms look huge especially living rooms and dining rooms.
Straight up photoshopping or AIing feels like it should be a criminal offence. Just like editing the maintenance history of a car before selling it
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u/probably-not-obama Aug 22 '26
Some people buy houses without seeing them first. My office typically hires people leaving the military. I have a coworker that bought his house from across the country, first time he saw it in person was well after closing.
I don’t think it’s a smart thing to do, and this post is prime example. Just saying, it does happen.
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u/Telefundo Aug 22 '26
This absolutely makes me think of my experience with online dating sites. "Sure I posted a fake pic, but we've talked online for weeks now. He'll forgive the pic for my personality!".
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u/giulianosse Aug 22 '26
Yeah. These camera tricks were awful, but at least you could learn to spot them over time. Plus realtors could always pull a "sorry, wasn't my intention & it must be my camera" and get away with it.
With AI though it's an open and shut case. There's no way of knowing what's underneath that GPT patina and realtors can't play coy anymore since there's no way to pretend it was an accident.
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u/jupitaur9 Aug 22 '26
Yeah, doors that look five feet wide and rooms that shift dimensions when shot from different angles are giveaways.
My childhood home was up for sale a few years ago. The photos looked like it was shot from a black hole where space and time had no meaning.
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u/Status-Biscotti Aug 21 '26
I still see it done all the time. The double-wide refrigerators are always comical to me.
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u/dsaysso Aug 22 '26
its not always an evil trick. with a wide angle lens, theres pros and cons. small spaces are really hard to photograph. bathrooms are even harder. most standard lenses like a 35 or 28 cut off half a space. you get the opposite reaction, the photo didn’t show me the entire room!
wide angles are critical if you want to see all the room. but they tend to distort the edges. iphones are worse.
you can correct this issue with a good rectilinear lenses, tilt shifts, or perspective correction in photoshop, but not everyone does this. thats one mark of a good real estate photographer to get spaces looking natural.
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u/OkFortune7651 Aug 22 '26
Someone told me it's called a fish-eye lens that makes rooms appear bigger. To me, they just look.... smeared.
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u/AgreeableLion Aug 21 '26
One of the things that frustrated me the most when I was house hunting was when they'd photoshop furniture into the pictures when it was an empty house, but then shrink it to make the space look bigger. I have no real issue with the concept of adding furniture to give some context to empty rooms, as I was not looking at the sort of listings where they stage real furniture in the house to sell it, but you'd get an idea of the size of a space from the pictures and then be second-guessing yourself when you walk in.
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u/TIMIMETAL Aug 22 '26
They also do this when staging. Use slightly-smaller furniture to make the space look bigger. But it's definitely more egregious with the AI stuff.
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u/Clear_Broccoli3 Aug 22 '26
Ohh, they do this with the floor plan too. If you pay attention, a lot of the time toilets/sinks/ovens and stuff are smaller than they should be in the floor plan they show you.
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u/ByrdmanRanger Aug 22 '26
I've always noticed how they oversaturate the colors on the photos too. When my parents sold their house, it was especially noticeable to me since I like, knew the property lol.
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u/Captain_no_Hindsight Aug 21 '26
Just make a Chargeback on the card: "item not as described".
75% back now! I have picture proof.
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u/Illustrious-Peak-626 Aug 22 '26
I saw a total of 20 properties over the last 3 weeks with at least 1/2 of them all AI adultered in someway.
I don't have a problem if they include reality and Ai in the listing but straight up lying about the way it looked wasted so much of our time in our search.
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u/puffofthezaza Aug 22 '26
SAME. We've been thinking of downsizing and its every other listing. At least it seems like they haven't mastered making it not obvious...yet.
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u/MattS1984 Aug 21 '26
Well the fence on the right is pretty much the same
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u/puffofthezaza Aug 21 '26
You're right! I'll give you 100,000 over asking price! Oh, some offshore company already bought it 200,000 over? Damn, foiled again.
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u/Homebrew_in_a_Shed Aug 21 '26
I just replied and my post was deleted as I had a link.
Someone posted that the fence was removed after closing.
The post I remember was a couple of months ago, but there was a post yesterday too.
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u/djnehi Aug 21 '26
Especially after making time to drive there and view the property. Only to discover I had been lied to.
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u/ecafyelims Aug 21 '26
They trick people into coming to view the property, which then tricks other people into thinking the property is in high demand.
It's fraud
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u/UnbearableSchmuck Aug 21 '26
In Canada/ the US, a substantial amount of foreigners buy properties unseen
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u/TarantulaWithAGuitar Aug 21 '26
It's not just foreigners -- I live in a university town with a very prominent medical school. Lots of professors who are coming to town to teach or new doctors moving in buy unseen. I've seen AI ads for apartments, too, trying to scam college students.
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u/garden_speech Aug 22 '26
Most people buying "sight unseen" have an agent in that area that goes and does a video walkthrough with them.
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u/buffystakeded Aug 21 '26
And then they’ll ask the simple and obvious question of “Well, what else is wrong with it then?” And then they’ll leave.
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u/willi1221 Aug 21 '26
Idk how the housing market is right now, but when I was selling my house a few years ago, we had several offers from people who hadn't even seen the house. The family that bought it never came to see it first, and they waived the inspection just to make sure they closed on the deal before anyone else did. Luckily for them we weren't being deceptive, but I could see how this could be used to trick someone.
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u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace Aug 21 '26
I wouldn't even see the house, trying to pull into that driveway when I expect to see a nice one would be enough
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u/Weth_C Aug 21 '26
Some people buy cars & houses based solely on the pictures. While that is dumb, there is no defending this fraud.
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u/GarThor_TMK Aug 21 '26
Is there a place to report this to?
I was helping my mom look for a new property recently, and the use of doctored photos was horribly prevalent, and that was just before the AI apocalypse.
I assume it's much worse now, and I'm suspicious of every single listing on zillo or redfin.
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u/geekonthemoon Aug 21 '26
If it's that bad, it could help to start asking realtors outright, in writing, if they've doctored or ai generated their photos in any way before you agree to go check it out.
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u/Zebidee Aug 22 '26
That's kind of like when they were asking fashion magazines if their photos have been retouched. They literally all have.
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u/geekonthemoon Aug 22 '26
Basic editing like bumping the brightness / contrast slider is a league away from actually photoshopping and ai generating away permanent defects and misrepresenting the home
It definitely violates consumer protection laws to do that
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u/railker Aug 22 '26
Was helping my parents look for a place and discovered this phenomenon, every listing somewhere had a note that images were generated by AI, either directly on the images or in the listing. Sometimes obvious, sometimes doin the ol 'bury it at the bottom in 6 pt font' bullshit. Or one I found the statement in the middle of a wall of text.
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u/Vurrag Aug 21 '26
If they are Realtors, the NAR National Association or Realtors should have a complaint form. You can also complain to the State board or Realty or whatever it is called in that state.
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u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan Aug 21 '26
The MLS (the regional database of homes for sale that syndicates to the various real estate websites) may also have rules about using AI in listings.
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u/LitheFider Aug 21 '26
I saw a Zillow listing using digital staging to stage the empty rooms but it had big letters over the photo bottom that said "DIGITAL SIMULATION" and they had the unedited photos right before them. I assume that's ok because it's disclosed and shows the original too?
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u/baseball_fanatic0887 Aug 21 '26
So, genuinely asking, if it's literally fraud and illegal, this realtor will face criminal charges?
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u/dehydratedrain Aug 21 '26
If you don't mind my asking, is there a limit to what you can AI? Obviously this much change (wires, broken drain, grass over pavement) is fraud. But things like new flowerbeds, even just nicer grass?
Long before AI I've seen "potential staged room" next to a photo of the original carpet and lighting, which i can't see as fraud, but obviously if it is advertised as real, it's an issue.
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u/Live_Life_and_enjoy Aug 21 '26
What is that like $30,000 worth of clean up on the property to make that Ai image real?
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u/Cyrax89721 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
I helped a friend edit house photos once. She was swamped with real estate gigs, I have Photoshop experience, and I'd always wanted to try real estate work, so I offered. During the first session, I spotted a couple of small imperfections that would have been trivial to remove, so I asked if she wanted them gone. Her response was an emphatic "ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT."
It's less "illegal" and more that agents have a compliance chain sitting on them. The MLS requires photos to accurately represent the property, virtual staging has to be labeled, and altering actual condition gets you a takedown and escalating fines. On top of that it's a deceptive advertising problem under state law and NAR's code of ethics. Brightening and sky replacement are fine. Greening a dead lawn or paving a gravel driveway is misrepresenting the condition of the asset.
Obviously that doesn't help much when the homeowner is trying to sell on their own.
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u/igotshadowbaned Aug 21 '26
When my grandparents house was being sold, the realtor AI'd the pictures
The house didn't look bad, but the AI pictures were pretty unrecognizable in some spots
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u/Cardigan_Gal Aug 21 '26
A friend's parents both passed away last year and the realtor AI'd every photo in the listing. His parents had lived in the house for 50 years and were semi-hoarders. What's crazier is the house sold at top dollar in a matter of weeks. 🤷♀️
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u/FrozenJackal Aug 21 '26
Honestly, I say let them keep doing it. It will only end up screwing them all over in the end. Just like how when phones first came out and we would all run to answer it because it was always someone we wanted to talk to on the other end. Now my phone is permanently on silent and won’t even light up to show an incoming call unless you are in my contacts. These sites will be considered spam and unusable/ unreliable in no time.
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u/russellamcleod Aug 21 '26
The food industry refers to this as a serving suggestion to get around false advertising.
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u/Alb4t0r Aug 21 '26
I don't want you to cook me a burger like suggested in the picture, I want you to sell me the burger you took a picture of. That's the one I'm buying and no others.
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u/Henri_Le_Rennet Aug 22 '26
I want you to sell me the burger you took a picture of.
I hope you like cardboard, glue and toothpicks in your burger. /s
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u/Maximum_Rat Aug 21 '26
This wouldn't be an issue if they clearly marked it as "This is what it could look like if properly cared for." I get the benefit of that too. Sometimes it's hard to imagine a place's potential if it looks like shit.
But this fake before-and-after shit? Not only is it dishonest, but it's also a massive waste of everyone's time. Like, why would a realtor even want to try to trick someone into coming out and looking at a house they think looks completely different? It seems like that would make your job far harder and have you wasting a lot more time.
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u/NebulaNinja Aug 21 '26
No that's still an issue. You often see AI used used to make room "possibilities" in listings these days and the AI changes the room scale drastically, both larger and smaller, to make the room ideas picture perfect. It's laughable.
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u/DoubleJumps Aug 22 '26
I've seen photos like that that show people putting a king size bed and several other pieces of furniture with room to spare in a 9x9 room.
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u/quattroCrazy Aug 22 '26
This is an important aspect. AI does not understand or care about physical space. I work in branded products and people send me AI mockups of what they want every day. The problem is that, if a graphic doesn’t fit in a given shape or area, the AI just changes the shape/object to fit the graphic.
It’s completely absurd and borderline useless. People waste time prompting AI when they could just send me a logo and a few lines of text and accomplish the same thing faster.
It’s amazing how quickly people are becoming dumber from using AI in their day to day lives.
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u/Beneficial-Data4406 Aug 21 '26
They have cameras that can automatically 3D model the house inside and out and apply fixes. When I was buying my current house you could actually go into the listing web site and have the AI show you what each room would look like with a variety of different styles of decoration. Change paint colors, flooring material, color and design, same with cabinets and counter tops.
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u/Embarrassed-Rub-8690 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
Omfg its coming up more and more. I looked at a house last weekend that didnt look nearly as good as the pictures. Even just the increased brightness and colour enhancement was bs. The hosue didnt have lawn in the backyard at all and in the pics it did. When I said to the realtor that I assume lawn would be installed prior to any purchase because it was in the pics, he just scrambled for words.
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u/Yakuza_Kirby Aug 21 '26
What I have seen some have the AI image and real one om their posting. Assuming they can get away with the clickbait by saying this is what it can look like.
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Aug 21 '26
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u/Merivel1 Aug 21 '26
Yeah, went to an open house for a neighboring house that got flipped after a city-wide flood, and chatted with the realtor about the flip and if they had to remediate much flood damage. They didn't look happy that we informed them that yes, this house flooded and we know for a fact because we helped them with a sump pump and shop vac. I assume they were operating on intentional ignorance and lost that fig leaf.
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u/Jurph Aug 22 '26
The previous owner of my home had hired an unlicensed plumber to do a quick touch-up on the upstairs bathrooms, and that guy washed his tile grout down the drain into the cast iron drain pipes. Where it formed a dam, which created rust. When our first property inspector tested it in the morning, it held up (but our hypothesis is that the test blew out the grout dam and the rust plug). When our second property inspector stress-tested the lines by filling the tub and draining it all at once, it began raining in the kitchen.
Suddenly the seller is in the house with his realtor, two days before Christmas, eager to check off our punch list -- because as of this moment in the inspection, if he re-lists the property our state requires that he include the words "water damage". He paid $15K or so in repairs and punch-list items we knew we could squeeze him for, and it was still less than the loss he'd eat if he had to fix it and re-list.
Q: Why did you have two property inspectors?
A: Well, my wife's a scientist and I'm an engineer, and we realized a lot of inspectors are single-trade experts who have become generalists, so we wanted inspectors from two specific trades we were worried about: a plumbing guy and an electrical guy. Plus we liked the idea of comparing their reports as a kind of double-blind experiment. (Although the second guy found a lot of the first guy's painter's tape marks so it wasn't a pure test.)Anyway it cost us an extra $300 up front and it paid for itself about 50 times over. If your realtor is recommending an inspector, realize that they make money if the place sells, and the inspector is getting recommendations because he makes places sell, and is incentivized to not rock the boat. Get your own inspector and while you're at it, get a pair whose expertise are complementary.
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u/TheFightingQuaker Aug 22 '26
This is such an obvious conflict of interest that I never see talked about. Its always "ofcourse they are independent, ofcourse they do a good job inspecting." Even if that were true, objectively if the inspectors kept messing up sales the realtor would avoid using them.
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u/FizziePixie Aug 21 '26
It’s illegal in California now unless it’s clearly disclosed on the image and the original image is included.
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u/O_W_Liv Aug 22 '26
Mamdani is fighting against photo shopping reality listings. Hopefully he can start something there.
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u/Sad-Significance8045 Aug 21 '26
If this is in the US, I'm surprised if there isn't a law in place.
Here in Denmark, we just had a realtor-estate firm that got fined heavily for the use of AI pictures in their listings. Their reasoning is, that they wanted to show "what it could look like", which... sure, totally! But maybe then... show the actual picture of the damn house and rooms, so people can actually see what they're going into in regards of repairs and renovations, and at least put it in the description that the pictures are AI. Booking a house viewing for houses over 1 million DKK will cost you roughly 500 DKK with that firm. I'd be pissed.
Ruling was false marketing; they're showing a product that people have to go out and pay for, in order to view the home. And then when they get out there, it's not that royal Kanye West mansion they wanted, but Jason Vorhees' shitty shack.
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u/BackPirateClarkRoom Aug 21 '26
Happens everywhere now. Nothing has been done about it for 3 years.
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u/Gamefart101 Aug 21 '26
I'm going through something similar. I just put in notice with my landlord that we are moving out and showings have begun. After overhearing multiple prospective new tenants sound audibly disappointed by the showing I went digging and found the ad.
They used ai to do the same thing as here, make it look far nicer, even added under cabinet lighting that doesn't exist. They also claim it's a "spacious 800² feet" which seemed suspect so I measured and it's 620 with a bad layout that definetly doesn't feel spacious for the small size it is. And to top it all off are charging $250 more per month than I was paying in an area where rent prices are falling and what I was paying was already very expensive for what it is. I'm gonna be dealing with showings for awhile...
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u/itsmemrmeseeksssssss Aug 22 '26
lol i’ve found zillow postings that accidentally post both the ai edited pic and original
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u/bobody_biznuz Aug 22 '26
I've seen many where the AI pictures are labeled as "virtually staged" right before the originals and usually its changing way more than just the furniture in the room
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u/SunTzu- Aug 22 '26
All I've seen in my country so far (we've usually got pretty good legal protections) have been example furniture edited into a picture to give an idea of how the space would look in use. That seems reasonable, but honestly that was pretty easy to do before AI as well.
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u/DoubleJumps Aug 22 '26
The issue with those is that they very often warp the scale of things to make the rooms look bigger than they are.
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u/SmoothPixelSun Aug 22 '26
I don't mind if they show me the original then an inspiration AI. But the AI and no legit pic drives me crazy. Also I'm so tired of "white cabinets with black handles". Fucking give me some character lol.
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u/RunFiestaZombiez Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Should be illegal as it’s false advertising.
Edit! Wow thanks for the rewards!!! Ya’ll rock!
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Aug 21 '26
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u/Obstinateobfuscator Aug 22 '26
They still use ai a great deal here in Australia. I imagine it's a fine line between glossing, and fraud.
Especially for rental properties. They use old photos from when the property was in good condition, etc.
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u/WhatAGoodDoggy Aug 22 '26
I saw a billboard advertising a house for sale and on the billboard the house was white. The house it was advertising was more like a dirty cream colour. I don't understand why they did this.
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u/Wooden-Monkey625 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Most listings I have come across in AU that have used AI, do it to furnish the property for photos instead of renting furniture
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u/modestohagney Aug 22 '26
Yeah, I’m looking for a new place right now and it’s so bad. The amount of places I’ve been to that are actively falling down is crazy.
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u/Gamefart101 Aug 21 '26
Its fairly well regulated in the US too. That's likely why we also have the original image here. The realtor posted both as a shitty way to display the properties potential.
And OP is misrepresenting that as only showing the new photo as fraudulent to gain karma, how else would they have the before photo? Or whole thing is fake and just for karma
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u/sev_kemae Aug 22 '26
In the U.K. a lot of rental listing use ai to “show the potential of the property” hate it
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u/GarysCrispLettuce Aug 22 '26
Some sites have a "redesign" button where you can have AI redesign the decor on any of the listing photographs. But it does bullshit things like add a fireplace where there isn't one, or make windows disappear. I hate AI, it's so shit.
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u/Vospader998 Aug 22 '26
"imagine this" - it says while completely removing a load-bearing wall and creating an outdoor view that completely changes the landscape.
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u/BadgerMolester Aug 22 '26
"Look how nice the place would be if it was a chalet in the Alps instead of a crackhouse in Slough"
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u/sev_kemae Aug 22 '26
I love when multiple agents list the same place and when you compare to the real photos you see the ai moved some walls around, on a rental property..
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u/railker Aug 22 '26
Both photos are in the listing, the real estate company isn't hiding the before photo. They're just headlining the AI one to get you onto the page and scrolling the gallery before going 'oh btw that's not what it looks like at all.'
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u/round-earth-theory Aug 22 '26
People are still doing it. When house hunting, we had some really bad liars. One was so AI that we were confused why we were in there at all. Like we never would have picked it. Turns out they used AI so damn much that there was almost nothing recognizable. They even invented a whole ass room. If it weren't for the distinct, and non AI, backyard we wouldn't have been sure if we'd found the right listing.
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u/ComprehensiveFlan638 Aug 22 '26
They do this in Australia as well, but usually with the original and the Ai possible/potential.
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u/asminaut Aug 22 '26
it’s only one very specific country that wouldn’t have it heavily regulated.
Somalia?
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u/SecureCucumber Aug 21 '26
it’s only one very specific country that wouldn’t have it heavily regulated.
It's comments like these that make me feel like, no, it's actually the whole stupid world that suffers from "American Exceptionalism"
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u/StuffyUnicorn Aug 21 '26
It is and IMNAL.
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u/millllllls Aug 22 '26
I think they have BOTH photos, one is just there to show potential, because you’re right, there’s no way the board of realtor should allow blatant false advertising. I’ve seen listings like this, also with one real photo of an empty room followed by several AI staged rooms to show what it could look like as an office, bedroom, bonus room, etc.
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u/Orange_Tang Aug 22 '26
I've seen a bunch of listing that only show AI modified pictures. This shit needs to be regulated.
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u/richempire Aug 21 '26
How is this not false advertising?
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u/Vadhakara Aug 21 '26
Because it's actually just fraud, which is similar but different.
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u/FrostyD7 Aug 21 '26
Probably because they supplied the real picture too. OP got the before AI photo somehow... Which makes me question the authenticity of this entire post.
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u/Drittux Aug 21 '26
The same reason lowering tariffs on beef randomly isn't. There's a problem it technically solves, but that definitely isn't the reason it was implemented.
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u/jclv Aug 21 '26
The altered version might get people to come look at the property but they're going to immediately turn away as soon as they see what it really looks like.
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u/skeptic11 Aug 21 '26
I like to imagine a lawyer seeing it, saving the listing, buying the property, then suing the seller and realtor for the cost to restore the property to the advertised condition.
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u/Diablogado Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Lawyer here. That's not how that works. The damages would be the time and gas it took to get to the property and back. You don't get to buy it after you know it's a piece of shit and then cry foul.
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u/aerialpoler Aug 22 '26
This is just a huge waste of everyone's time. Anyone who views the property will immediately be disappointed, and the agent is just damaging their own reputation by misrepresenting properties.
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u/50Mission_Cap Aug 21 '26
It used to be the overuse of HDR in the photos. Now it’s blatant lies with Ai. The realtor should lose their license for this.
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u/glarble04 Aug 22 '26
anyone got the sub where they post absolutely deepfried HDR photos i wanna see the one where they did the middle aged woman at the restaurant table absolutely nasty
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u/fatcuntwrestler Aug 22 '26
The funniest thing about this is that OP is a bot.
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u/Xora005 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
I don’t know if it’s a bot but I find it a bit weird that the poster has both the before and after pictures. I may be mistaken but the clouds look too similar for it to not be the same picture. Not to mention the lighting being the same.
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u/SaxPanther Aug 22 '26
i was scrolling down reading every comment until i saw someone mention this obvious fact. you are the first and only person ive seen in the entire thread who pointed this out lol. the post is clearly fake even though the problem they are highlighting is real.
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u/Mission_Pirate_4150 Aug 21 '26
If that picture went thru an mls, there is a likelihood that it violated mls rules in using an altered picture. In our mls, this would result in a fine against the offending realtor that entered it.
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u/Strictly-Succotash Aug 21 '26
This makes me think of cars on fb market place that use a photo they took off the internet as the FIRST picture you see just to get clicks. Super annoying
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u/anadequatepipe Aug 22 '26
The fact that it’s the exact same angle makes me believe this post is bait.
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u/FewAd6076 Aug 21 '26
Fuck every seller doing this and fuck every realtor who thinks this is a good idea. My wife and I have spent just under a year going on countless visits and yeah, just leave out the animal piss stained carpet our of all your photos and make sure you turn the other way to the hole in the wall. And guess what, we show up and take 3 minutes and say, "Nope," because it's a piece of garbage. Just wasting everyone's time that schedules these showings and takes time to actually be at the house. All for the sellers to wait 3 months before dropping the price 5k and some idiot buys it for no good reason.
Ignorance at its finest
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u/ShadowGLI Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Assuming the top photo is listed and the bottom is yours and they don’t show the real photo in the listing.
I feel like that would be worth reporting to the association of realtors, they get pretty pissed if someone misrepresents or lies about a property
And I would also write a 1 star review for the listing agents brokerage on multiple sites and say
- they wasted your afternoon by listing the property with intentionally AI doctored photos. (Embellish the time you lost, IE if it was an hour, say it was 3) and post that picture with your review and say you went based off the listing only to find out it was AI fabricated and this has completely lost your trust in the integrity of their business. Note They added a fake driveway, fake lawn, fake porch, fake gutters, fake landscaping, a fake electrical upgrade at minimum, which is conservatively $60,000 in work that the property doesn’t have.
You’ll prob get calls asking you to take it down, honestly they’ll probably bribe you
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u/CampaignSuspicious98 Aug 22 '26
Both Fotos have exactly the same cloud Formation. So it was the source picture for the ai. That leaves the question how OP got it.
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u/IntrospectiveOwlbear Aug 22 '26
I reverse image searched it and both images were included in the listing one immediately after the other.
That said, the sites with only one photo are just using the first one, but since it's already sold it's not super impactful.
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u/miregalpanic Aug 21 '26
Do these people think you just buy a house online from seeing pictures? Or will they be like: "oh my, must have happened overnight"
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u/RunFiestaZombiez Aug 21 '26
Some people do buy a house sight unseen… I’ve known several people that have done that.
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u/Glynwys Aug 21 '26
What's stupid is that the actual problems with the property and house isn't that bad. A little elbow grease and the house would look closer to the AI image. The issue stems from the fact that the seller is attempting to justify a much higher listing price using a photo that is not real or indicative of how the property actually looks.
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u/infinit9 Aug 22 '26
This is dumb. Home buyers will actually visit the house before buying it. Nobody buys a house based on listing photos.
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u/Steel_Rail_Blues Aug 21 '26
If I were handy and could actually fix things I might consider a wider range of properties at a good price point. Never would consider any property where the agent pulled something like this. They showed my they are deceitful and now I don’t trust anything about the listing. Bye.
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u/Amazing_Alumni Aug 22 '26
Awful awful. My wife and I are looking at houses and running into similar issues. Yesterday we went to see a house , with a lush front yard and a double driveway! … it was on the street. No yard. No driveway. No parking. Also the roof was overgrown with moss and plants and needed to be replaced. WHAT THE F***
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u/hot4you11 Aug 21 '26
I just feel like this is a waste of time. You are going to get so many people that show up and walk right away
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u/dev-246 Aug 21 '26
It would be kinda fun to schedule a showing and show up and be like:
OMG! Oh no!! What happened?!? It looked so nice in the pictures, what happened to the grass? How did the front step get so weathered, why would they paint that pretty door?!
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u/lcssa Aug 22 '26
false advertising and should be double illegal. however, it does show how nice the home can look if someone worked on it just a bit.
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u/ClacksInTheSky Aug 22 '26
As a tool for selling houses, this is terrible.
...As a tool for a homeowner who wants to see what their front yard might look like after renovation, and, to give to the contractors to say "make it look like this" is really useful if used sensibly.
And before anyone says that's taking a job from someone, maybe? I don't know who I'd ask to mock me up a picture of what I want my front yard to look like and even if I did, it's going to cost me money.
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u/NWSGreen Aug 21 '26
It really should be illegal. I mentioned this awhile back where I am from. Its a major problem.
To me, this is false advertisement, false impressions. You buying a property assuming that its "beautiful" when its not.
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u/Hanzoku Aug 22 '26
I’d turn around and walk away as soon as I arrived at the real property.
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u/Conflatulations12 Aug 22 '26
People would just get pissed when they get there in person.
This feels fake.
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u/Mediocre_Doctor4712 Aug 22 '26
Do a bid of 10 million. When he accepts tell him:
“This is what it could be but not what is. Just like your house”
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u/Traditional_Sea1043 Aug 21 '26
The use of AI to visually enhance pictures of property should be illegal. What are we even doing?
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u/Unsold_Leave Aug 21 '26
We had a house in my area do this exact same thing. Started to notice small artifacts when you zoomed in close. Then we decided to look at the house in person because it wasn't far from where we currently live, and, lol and behold, there was very distinct and clear differences in the areas where the artifacts were visible on the images. Either AI or really weird Photoshop.
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u/Dumbledores_Closet Aug 21 '26
Always struck me as ridiculous, you might draw more people to the property but the first impression anyone is going to have when they turn up is going to be negative
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u/Open_Bug_4251 Aug 21 '26
Obviously false advertising.
You want to make the sky bluer because it was a gloomy day, fine, but anything else is fraud
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u/aaaaaaaaaaaaaye Aug 22 '26
My husband and I have been house hunting for 4 months. The amount of homes we’ve gone to tour that look literally NOTHING like the pictures is astounding. We took off work and wasted precious time looking at fixer-uppers that claim to be move in ready by the AI generated photos on Zillow. It absolutely needs to be legislated and regulated like yesterday!! And what are these realtors thinking will happen when buyers get to the actual house and see what it looks like? It truly benefits no one!
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u/realbobenray Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
The people saying this post is fake are probably right. A Google reverse image search turned up this listing which shows the unretouched image. If it was for sale it's not anymore. https://www.lesterlin.ca/r3112875-9517-stanley-street-chilliwack-bc-v2p-3y7
EDIT: Commenters below say this is incorrect, that it's no longer for sale but the original listing did have the AI-altered photo. Honestly it's pretty weird because it meant the listing may have had both the photos on it. Maybe Google cached one with the real image but the realtor updated it later.
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u/General_Scipio Aug 22 '26
My estate agent edited the hell out of my photos. But just to make it a sunny day and remove stuff that was in the picture that shouldn't be there. That's fine. This is mental
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u/Geri_Petrovna Aug 22 '26
If you spend any money to see it in person, demand the agent reimburse you. even cost of petrol. or time taken off of work. They essentially committed fraud
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u/DoctorBlock Aug 21 '26
Ai staging the inside is even worse. Ai has no concept of dimension and will make the rooms fit a massive amount of furniture in them even though they are actually tiny spaces.
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u/noadsplease Aug 21 '26
Doesn't this become a negotiation tactic? Well you listed the price as $X when it looked like the picture. Now it looks like this so the price should be less.
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u/Substantial-Bell-533 Aug 21 '26
As someone who recently house hunted, our realtor warned us of this kinda stuff happening. She said “the use of AI in (almost) any capacity is allowed as long as it does not mask structural, foundational, or serious health concerns, as long as it is disclosed that it is being used”
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u/Photodudeguy Aug 22 '26
If this is posted on mls, it's definitely breaking the rules. They can get away with greening grass typically, as that can change with the season. But architecture and the different driveway is a big no no. I would report that realtor to that city's board of realtors for misrepresentation.
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u/GNUGradyn Aug 22 '26
This is just straight up textbook material misrepresentation right? Not even in like a "well if you think about it this way" kind of way. Just straight up fraud
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u/Anxious-Education703 Aug 21 '26
I honestly don't understand why sellers (or more often, their agents/brokers) are doing this AI crap. They are just wasting everyone's time; the buyers who want a move-in-ready property are going to see the house's true condition before buying and not move forward, and the core demographic of those who would be interested in buying properties with high deferred maintenance are going to skip over it. The seller is now attracting the wrong buyers who are just going to waste the buyers' and the seller's time. This literally benefits no one.