AI home staging is creating unrealistic expectations for buyers: ‘My client walked out within minutes’

Upscale real estate marketing has always relied on top shelf presentation mixed with the art of illusion. Think professional staging with a sculptural sofa placed just so, lush photography worthy of a glossy magazine, and carefully chosen lighting that can transform a listing from ho-hum to high level.

Now a new tool is rapidly entering the luxury listing toolkit: artificial intelligence.

“AI staging has skyrocketed,” said Parisa Afkhami, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Warburg in New York City. 

The uptick in using a computer to insert pixels instead of arranging borrowed furniture all boils down to ease. AI-powered staging programs allow agents to digitally furnish empty rooms, repaint walls, remove clutter or even redesign interiors with a few keyboard clicks rather than unloading the contents of a moving van. The technology is also inexpensive, widely available and spreading quickly across listing platforms.

Yet, some real estate professionals, particularly those who deal with high-end real estate, say that as the images become more sophisticated, the gap between online presentation and the actual property can sometimes be wildly different. People have started to call the use of egregiously AI-doctored listing images “housefishing,” a play on the term “catfishing,” when people create fake internet personas to deceive others.

“I find AI staging to be misleading to buyers,” Afkhami said. “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.”

In one case, the mismatch was enough to end a showing almost immediately.

Real estate agents have reported some clients dropping plans to buy a house after finding they were mislead by AI staging online. Gorodenkoff – stock.adobe.com

“I took a client from Dubai to view a listing originally seen online,” Afkhami added. “The images in the listing had beautiful streamlined modern upholstery and spectacular Central Park views.”

The reality? Much different.

“When we got there, it was on a lower level with a view of a wall. After turning your neck enough, you had a bird’s eye view of the park,” Afkhami said. “No modern white furniture but lots of colorful print furniture and accessories instead. Needless to say, my client walked out within minutes.”

The reason for such an extreme reaction is simple: “Once a buyer feels misled, they often spend the entire showing looking for other hidden defects rather than focusing on the property’s potential,” said Greg Field, an agent at HomeSmart in Tempe, Arizona.

When digital images create confusion

Professional stagers say the problem with heavily manipulated listing images is not only buyer disappointment, but confusion about what the home truly looks like.

Heather Amalaha, a designer and professional stager of Showhomes Premier Design Studio in Austin, Texas, said she recently reviewed a listing while preparing a staging proposal and found that many of the images had been radically altered digitally.

“Some photos just changed the furniture layout or added decor pieces, but others changed architectural features and fixtures,” Amalaha said. “I spent quite a while trying to figure out what was real and what was AI, but ultimately, I was left with an unclear idea of what the home truly looked like. And I would bet that buyers are having the same confusing experience.”

The home she reviewed remains unsold and the price has been reduced a total of 12.5%, or $200,000, according to Amalaha. Traditional staging, meanwhile, would have cost the sellers less than “1% of the list price and likely would have helped the home sell already,” she added.

Digital staging tools are far cheaper than traditional staging, but the results often do not produce the same emotional response as a buyer’s personal experience in the home with actual furnishings, experts said.

“Staging’s real emotional impact happens when a buyer feels welcome as they step through the front door or when they sit on the sofa to linger a little longer in the living room or when they start imagining family dinners around the table,” Amalaha said.

The legal line

Beyond buyer disappointment, some legal experts say overly manipulated listing images can raise compliance concerns.

The technology itself is not the issue, according to Jenna Bailey, founder and lead trial attorney at Bailey Law Firm in Tempe, Arizona. The risk emerges when images misrepresent the property.

“The issue is whether the images transition from being illustrative to falsifying,” Bailey said. “Real estate marketing remains subject to consumer protection and fraud principles. Images that have been too heavily manipulated that materially alters how a property looks could be considered deceptive advertising.”

California put a law into effect this year that enforces disclosure of AI-altered listing images. Rules that protect consumers from harm related to AI content are underway in other states as well. 

In many cases, the legal problem can begin with the expectations created before buyers ever arrive at the property. To avoid issues, an agent using AI should clearly state the extent of the use of artificial intelligence in listing photos.

“Agents should accurately convey the underlying structure of the home,” Bailey advised. “Its layout, size, windows and condition. Transparency is the key to build trust.”

The case for responsible AI

Companies developing AI staging tools agree the technology is valuable when used responsibly.

“Transparency is really important to keep buyer expectations in check,” agreed Markk Tong, marketing and realtor partnerships director at Collov AI, a virtual staging company. “Yet when used the right way, AI staging can help buyers understand a property better, especially when they’re looking at an empty room that might otherwise be hard to imagine living in.”

The key, Tong said, is ensuring the digital changes stay faithful to the overall bones of a property, just as Bailey advised.

“No one benefits when AI tools misrepresent the structure of a space,” Tong said. Michelle Rhyne, a global real estate adviser at Premier Sotheby’s International Realty in Cornelius, North Carolina, said that she generally avoids AI-generated images “to stage or alter a home, room or yard.”

“I’ve actually pulled up to homes before where the online photos showed lush green grass and beautiful trees, only to find the yard looked nothing like the photos in person,” she added. “As in mud and no trees.”

Still, Rhyne said AI can be useful in certain situations, particularly during showings when buyers want help imagining potential changes.

“If a buyer says something like ‘What would it look like if the house were painted white?’ or ‘Could we add a front porch, back porch, or a pool?’ I’ll sometimes take a quick photo of the house with my phone and use AI to generate a visual while we’re standing there at the property,” Rhyne said.

In the end, the most effective listings, agents agree, still rely on a simple principle: helping buyers imagine themselves in the home—without misleading them about what they will find when they arrive.

“The most successful listings are the ones where the photos accurately reflect what the buyer will see when they walk through the door,” said global real estate advisor Pablo Alfaro of Compass. “I always advise sellers that the goal is to attract the right buyer, not just the most clicks.”