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So much of the distortion issue could be ameliorated by providing a floor plan. Then the buyer would have a context to mentally reform the rooms to the real configuration. Otherwise these distorted images of rooms are annoying as he11.
I love when they add floor plans. wish more people did this.
As for the photos, puffery has been around for centuries, it's not surprise to see it in real estate photos. Fortunately, if you look at enough listings, you get a feel for how to look beyond the wide angle lenses and color saturations. (Although I've fallen for a few, and once drove three hours to see a listing that appeared to be on a beautiful lake, only to find it was a small brown retention pond with serious erosion into the "backyard" which was only about 10 feet).
Wide angle shots I can live with (although I dislike them). Shots taken from weird angles are a red flag for me; if a photographer need to take a shot from a crouching position something is wrong. Color saturation strikes me as unnecessary and annoying, but doesn't keep me from picturing the property so I'm ok with it.
I'm NOT ok with erasing things from photos. No exceptions. When I see that, I pass on listings and I think a lot of other people do, too. I'm not just talking about smudging out cracks--any evidence that a photo has been smudged for any reason and I pass on a listing. So please think twice before smudging out the dog--seeing Fido does less harm than seeing the smudge where Fido once stood.
The other big red flag for me is when a majority of the rooms aren't shown. Or when only a small corner of an important room is shown. I want to see the living room, not just one corner with a fancy chair. If only the outside of a house is photographed, I usually pass on a listing.
Not too long ago, the banks were demanding stated income that could cover the mortgage, so what they got were buyers(clients) who cosmetically doctored their earnings by saying they were (also) working for a friend who was paying them X amount in addition to their actual job...that financial theory eventually headed south, didn't it?
Don't think that cosmetically doctored pictures will do the same for the economy, but people will eventually get fed-up of being lied to, especially when they have to waste time and gas hunting down and driving to a property that has no resemblance to what they want, w/wo their agent checking out the home in person first.
Up until the seventies(?) some homeowners actually painted over fire-charred walls before listing their homes...remember the old adage uttered by agents and homeowners alike;
"A coat of paint covers a multitude of sins"... isn't that another case of "It's what the seller/client wants",... is not the buyer some sort of a client?
If "Client$" and Agent$ are supplying false documents via misleading pictures from the get-go, what are the contracts going to look like w/o a magnifying glass in front of a telescope?
In the first place, fish-eye lenses distort the image. It is really obvious when a fish-eye has been used.
In the second place, who DOES NOT check the appearance of a house on Google? Every now and then I run across an address that doesn't have street level pictures available, but the vast VAST majority of listings do appear with street level photos on Google. Check them. They are often illustrative - sometimes even in positive ways.
You should always take it for granted that they are hiding flaws and emphasizing the sometimes few features that are attractive. Take it with a grain of salt, always.
ISo please think twice before smudging out the dog--seeing Fido does less harm than seeing the smudge where Fido once stood.
When I take something out of a photo, I challenge anyone to tell where I took it out -- major Photoshop skills -- no tell-tale blurrs, here! :-) But by the same token -- cracks stay in. Stained carpet stays in, if it's obvious. Cracked bathroom mirrors stay in. I've irritated sellers who think I should "minimize" a crack in the floor of the basement, "because it might scare buyers away", or think I should "make their grass greener" -- i.e., fill in the bare spots the dog has dug out. As I said before, "Do you really think a buyer isn't going to see it the minute they walk up to the house?"
When I take something out of a photo, I challenge anyone to tell where I took it out -- major Photoshop skills -- no tell-tale blurrs, here! :-)
To each his own, I guess. Personally, I don't think that being skilled at removing something from a photo makes it ok. And I suspect people can tell more than you think they can. If you're truly just removing temporary things like a dog that just happens to wander into the shot, wouldn't it be easier to take a second shot without the dog? Or tell the seller to take the dog for a walk on photo shoot day?
Eh, it's done all of the time these days so I'm not surprised. That's why homes should still be seen in person, just to verify that what is shown in the pictures is legit. Our home viewed exactly as it did in the online photos while another home we toured looked better in the photos. The actual house was a fixer with a crappy addition, plus the house and property appeared larger than it actually was.
As for the "airbrushing" of flaws, well the photographer of our house airbrushed away the oil stain in the driveway. Didn't seem to make much of a difference to the folks who purchased the house.
I really can't stand the overly saturated HDR'ed images that look like cartoons, or video games.
I saw on our MLS HDR'ed images of a 1974 single wide mobile home that made it look like the luxury imported rare-wood paneled walls of a grand old mansion. It really did! I wished I'd have saved them to show later.
I try to take nice pictures of our listings, but I do NOT want people to be shocked and disappointed when they actually walk in the home. How does that help?
And photoshopping things out which are not removable, like power lines or neighbors.... that's just plain unethical.
At one point, a friend was looking at properties in England and every listing contained a floor plan. I assume their MLS-equivalent has a program that generates them as part of the listing.
I am not selling any time soon (more like 10-15 years, hopefully!), but still have a copy of my floor plan (new construction) accessible electronically so I can add it to the listing whenever the time comes. When I moved into my last place, I was the second owner and the prior owners had left a paper copy of the floor plan, so I was able to addt to the listing when I sold that place.
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