HouseFishing and AI Retouching

I just read a wild piece from the National Association of REALTORS® about “housefishing,” and it really struck a nerve with me because I’ve been watching some of the same thing happen as AI becomes more common in real estate marketing.

I’m not against AI, and I’m certainly not against retouching. I’ve been a professional photographer for more than 35 years, and making a property look its best has always been part of the job. We correct color, balance exposure, straighten verticals, manage difficult window light and clean up the kinds of distractions that come from the photographic process itself.

What makes me roll my eyes is when the editing stops improving the photograph and starts improving the actual house.

There is a difference between presenting a property well and digitally redesigning it. Turning a completely dead lawn green, removing permanent power lines, replacing damaged floors, changing finishes, inventing landscaping or making a room appear substantially larger may produce a prettier image, but it also creates an expectation that the real property cannot meet.

And I think the real cost of that is trust.

A buyer sees the photographs before they ever meet the agent or walk through the front door. Those photographs are making a promise about what they are about to see. When a buyer arrives and immediately realizes that the listing has been heavily manipulated, that promise has been broken.

Now the buyer isn’t just questioning the photograph. They may start questioning the listing description, the agent and everything else they’ve been told about the property.

That erosion of trust is a much bigger problem than whether the lawn looked a little greener online.

To me, truth in advertising still matters. Real estate photography should absolutely be attractive. It should make someone stop scrolling and want to see the home. But the best photography does that by finding what is genuinely appealing about the property and presenting it well, not by manufacturing features that aren’t there.

Good retouching should help overcome the limitations of the camera. It shouldn’t be used to overcome the limitations of the property.

AI has made the line easier to cross because almost anything can now be changed in seconds. That means photographers and agents need to be more disciplined, not less.

The question shouldn’t just be, “Can we make this look better?”

It should also be, “Will the buyer still trust us when they see it in person?”

Because once that trust is gone, no amount of retouching is going to bring it back.

#RealEstatePhotography #RealEstateMarketing #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #PhotoRetouching #TruthInAdvertising #LosAngelesRealEstate