AI in property listings is false advertising, house-hunters say

Published7 hours ago

Property buyers and renters say the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in listings appearing on sites like Rightmove is "false advertising" and wastes time for all involved.

Jessica Otterwell, who is hunting for a flat in Brighton, East Sussex, told the BBC: "It's like if you went to buy a car because the picture was of a brand-new Mercedes and you turned up and it was a Skoda with one wheel."

An estate agent in Sussex said it could cost up for £50,000 to stage a property with furniture, while another in Surrey added: "Technology should help people, not deceive them."

Rightmove, a portal website which pulls in listings from other estate agents, and does not sell or rent properties directly, said AI-generated imagery was allowed on the site if it was clearly labelled.

The BBC has seen some property listings in which the images have been watermarked "Virtually staged" or "Artificially enhanced", but many others have not been disclosed.

The practice has been dubbed by some as "housefishing".

Otterwell, who compared the use of AI in property listings to catfishing on a dating app, said she had excitedly told her parents about a potential property to purchase, but "was greeted with what I can only describe as an absolute hovel".

"There was nothing apart from a stained mattress on the floor. It was in a terrible state of disrepair," she said.

"You walked in and thought 'where are the painted walls, the Matisse artwork, the fitted kitchen'."

Leyla Ledwith, 31, who was searching for a rental property in Brighton for three months, said that only two of the dozen properties she viewed had the furnishings seen on Rightmove.

"It is false advertisement, it is totally off-putting and really frustrating," she said.

"You see a lovely, modern property with nice furnishings. But you go and it's dark, dingy and everything is old and falling apart."

Ledwith said that it was wasting time for renters and buyers, sellers and landlords, and the estate agents.

"I don't understand who is benefiting from the AI photos," she added.

Chris Norris, chief policy officer at the National Residential Landlords Association, said it was concerning that some felt misled.

"It is absolutely crucial that listings sites, when integrating AI into their operations, apply the technology responsibly to avoid causing confusion for users at any point in the process," he said.

The BBC approached a number of estate agents for comment about their use of AI-generated images in listings.

David Vaughan, director of Sussex-based estate agents Aston Vaughan, said the firm used AI staging to "solve a problem for both sides".

"For owners, it's a huge cost saving – physical staging can cost anywhere from £5,000 on average up to £50,000 just to show a property with furniture in," he told the BBC.

"And buyers have told us empty rooms are hard to read for scale, and virtually dressing a room makes it much easier to understand how you would actually live in it."

Meanwhile, Warren Powell-Richards, an estate agency based in Surrey and Hampshire, says the future of the industry will involve AI.

"The challenge for estate agents is ensuring they don't get carried away with the possibilities at the expense of the customer experience," it said.

"We are not anti-AI. Taking that position would be madness in a world that's becoming increasingly dependent on it. However, we believe that it's a tool, and not a substitute for trust."

A spokesperson from Miles & Barr, an estate agent based in East Kent, said the use of AI and CGI to help prospective buyers and tenants visualise a property had been common practice for some time.

Rightmove said agents were responsible for the content they uploaded.

"It's critically important that people see accurate representations of properties on our platform," a spokesperson added.

"We take action where images are found to be misleading, including requiring amendments, removing the listing from our platform and taking further action where necessary."

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Related topics

Brighton

Hove

Rightmove

Housing

Renting

Artificial intelligence

Margate

Estate agents

Housing market

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Related internet links

Rightmove

Rightmove

Aston Vaughan

Aston Vaughan

Warren Powell-Richards

Warren Powell-Richards

Miles & Barr

Miles & Barr