Real Estate Marketing Tips: How To Clean Up After Your Sellers Without Messing with Their Stuff

Got sellers who aren’t too keen on . . . say, clearing off a messy bed for you to take photos? Nothing a little Photoshop rubber stamp magic can’t fix. Add a few blocky pillows, spread that quilting, and presto! It’s clean!

Hey, that was easy! What else could we brush up in this Memorial Bend home?

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Maybe a few extra “personal care products” on the bathroom counter? No problem. They’re gone now!

A few pieces of kiddie artwork on the fridge that aren’t quite appropriate for MLS? They’re gone!

And that tilework the sellers had always wanted to fix? All done now!

That’s it! Now this place is pretty as a picture!

14 Comment

  • Is this against any Realtor regulations? I know it doesn’t matter if you “make up the bed” with Photoshop, but what about fixing the tile?

  • I imagine this house will be torn down for lot value as many of the houses have been in that neighborhood, so minor blemishes probably don’t matter.

    But I would think photoshopping a new roof might be a little unethical.

  • What kind of effect did they use for the exterior shot. Looks like paint-by-number.

  • miss_msry…I think they used a touch of “canvas” with watercolor. I’m guessing they did this to cover up a terrible, rotting exterior.

    BTW, this person’s Photoshop skills are just embarrassing. They should have made the house appear like it was sitting on the moon or something… even that would have been more believable.

  • Yeah, step away from the photoshop if you can’t do better than that.

  • This is hilarious.. So what does the realtor do when he/she’s showing the house.. Stand in front of the mess in the room and holes in the kitchen?

  • I don’t photoshop my pics. My skills are worse that this one. I wonder: What about HDR photography? I have never used it in my marketing, but some of the images sure border on fantasy as well.

  • This is absolutely not allowed. They are not showing things as they really are. This matter could fall under material misrepresentation and the realtor may face severe penalties by TREC.

  • Check out her “skills” in her other listing (look at the brick wall on the back patio)…
    http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cfm?mlnum=99145261

  • Gawd, that is bad.

  • A Realtor can’t misrepresnt the property by altering photos; but, they can take photos from different angles that may hide the mess!

  • This falls into the not-fooling-anybody category. The house has been on the market since March 09, so I’m guessing when real people see the real house, the game is over. If only the poor photoshop skills weren’t so obvious! Why can’t the realtor ask the owners to make the bed, move the toiletries and take down the kid stuff for better shots?

  • In the second house, it’s not just the bad photoshop work, but the picture of the large master bedroom where the only thing shown is the bed, so we can’t really tell how big the room is. The rest of the pictures are of poor quality, and look altered, even though they aren’t.

    I’ll stick with my regular agent the next time I sell a house.