Apr 2, 2026
House-hunting can be exhilarating, but also exasperating, as buyers balance property dreams with the market reality — especially when the reality is getting less real.
Images made with generative AI are presenting homebuyers with a new challenge: how to spot a case of “housefishing.”
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“People will see a listing online, think it’s their dream home, go to see it in person, and then, quite frankly, be left horrified by what the property is,” Charlie Lankston with Realtor.com told WRTV, an Indianapolis ABC affiliate (1).
Like catfishing, where someone misrepresents or oversells themselves in an online dating profile, AI can be used to transform a property listing into a fantasy that won’t pass muster in person.
How AI is blurring reality
Anyone who has scrolled through real estate listings lately has likely noticed homes that look a little unreal. One common indicator is a picture of a vacant room, followed immediately by a picture of that same room with fresh, modern furnishings.
It’s not hard to understand why a real estate agent would opt for a virtual glow-up rather than real staging.
Melody Storey, an agent in Oklahoma, says she used to spend extra for virtual staging of photos she’d already paid “hundreds of dollars” for. Now, she does everything herself, from photos she snaps with her phone.
“I have used virtual staging in the past that was done with my photographer, but I don’t have to do that anymore — I can just tell AI what I want,” Storey said in an interview with Business Insider (2).
Parisa Afkhami, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Warburg in New York City, says AI staging has “skyrocketed,” but it can go too far (3).
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“Sometimes, I arrive to a listing with buyers and find very little similarity between how the home was presented in the listing and the actual property we are walking through,” Afkhami told Realtor, adding that she’s had clients walk out of showings over “misleading” staging (3).
It’s one thing to use a wide-angle shot to make a room appear bigger, but it’s another to use AI to alter a home’s architecture — or even cover its flaws.
“I’ve had some agents ask me to go in and get rid of a stain on the carpet or fix a hole in the wall,” Ashley Marks, a Virginia-based photographer who offers AI enhancement services, told Business Insider.
“And I always say to them, ‘I can do it, but if it’s going to look like that when you’re showing the property, you can get in trouble for doing that. So I wouldn’t recommend it’” (2).
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How to protect your house hunt
It’s not surprising that, according to a 2025 report from the National Association of Realtors, more than half (52%) of buyers find their homes online (4).
It’s all the more reason, Lankston says, that buyers should work closely with a real estate agent who can help them spot red flags, including photos that appear “overly polished.”
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“If something looks too good to be true, it probably is,” she told WRTV (1).
Other AI tells to look out for include:
- Furniture that seems to float in the room, with legs that don’t touch the floor.
- Blurry edges where there should be straight lines, or halos around staged items.
- Skies that are too blue, grass that is too green or plants in bloom out of season.
- Different weather outside from one window to the next (5).
If you are shopping for a home fully remotely, a local real estate agent can also do a crucial in-person visit on your behalf. And they can organize a home inspection that could help unearth issues that can’t be spotted in person — or in photos, least of all fake ones.
California homebuyers now have legal protection against misleading AI images in property listings. To take on the issue, the state made disclosure for digitally altered images the law, with Assembly Bill 723, which went into effect Jan. 1 (6). In addition to “conspicuous” disclosure when photos have been altered, the bill requires a publicly accessible URL or QR code that brings users to the original, unaltered photos (7).
For buyers outside California, working with property sellers registered with the National Association of Realtors (NAR) can offer protection, as they are bound by a code of ethics that requires them to present a “true picture in their advertising and representations,” at all times (8).
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
WRTV (1); Business Insider (2); Realtor.com (3); National Association of Realtors (4, 8); Urban Acres (5); Newsweek (6); California Legislature (7)
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Tara Losinski is an associate editor for Moneywise.
