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Estate agent's hi-tech house tour exposes personal data

87 points by salgernon 5y ago

cortesoft 5y ago
This is basically like an open house. They should have prepped the house the same way before taking these photos. The high tech part seems not really related. The same thing would have happened with plain photos, or an in person open house.
- munk-a 5y ago
  They should've but the tech part is relevant. Obvious bad actors that are snooping around in open houses are certainly an issue but can be remediated a lot easier - you can kick those visitors out and bar folks with a history of snooping from entry - both of which work relatively well on the local level. I think tech is specifically relevant here since this is another clear example of scaling up beyond cultural norms using technology causing emergent security issues - the issues were present all along but there were some systems in place to limit how harmful they could be and technology has released us from those limits.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Typically in an open house just anybody can walk in, can’t they? It’s not like they ask you for ID.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      It isn't a public space so you can be barred from entry and, often, you'll be let into the house by a realtor. If that realtor recognizes you as abusing open houses they can just refuse you entry or take a more extreme measure.
      - monocasa 5y ago
        I'm not sure that I would trust a realtor to recognize war driving (war showing?).
        krisoft 5y ago
        Realtors are there to sell houses. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them had a keen “nose” to figure out who is just “interested” and who means real business. After all it is in their best interest to not waste their time with lookie-loos. Obviously that doesn’t mean that one can’t pretend well enough once or twice, but not at a scale where this becomes a viable avenue to criminals.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        Having bought a house, I sure would be surprised. And IME if they don't think you look like you're gonna buy the house, they just let you walk around but ignore you.
        monocasa 5y ago
        From a house selling perspective it's probably in their best interest to simply ignore those people. Buyers with large pockets can come of as lackadaisical.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        It also seems like it's not worth a confrontation trying to stop people from coming in, from the agent's perspective.
        cortesoft 5y ago
        Yeah, very little gain, and a good chance to end up on social media branded as a racist or classist.
        lupire 5y ago
        Your speculation is contradicted by thousands of open houses every weekend. Seriously, go visit one and see what it's like. It's not the CIA Headquarters, it's usually a minimums wage newbie agent squatting in a house advertising for clients.
      - deleted 5y ago
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    - zaphod12 5y ago
      I've seen realtors ask for ID unless you're accompanied by another realtor (who would leave a card). Basically they want a record of people through the house in case something does happen. You could easily make a fake business card, of course... professional courtesy means a realtor seldom asks another for an id. But this would likely only work briefly in a given area once word got out.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        I bought a house before and attended a number of open houses. I signed my name on a sheet but was not asked to present ID. In some cases (I guess where the realtor figured I wasn't going to buy? Not sure) they just let me walk around and paid no attention to me at all.
      - cortesoft 5y ago
        That isn't how an open house works (at least in my experience buying a house in Los Angeles in 2018). They advertise the hours, put up a bunch of balloons, and anyone can walk in. They ask you to sign a sheet so they can contact you, but I never saw them make anyone sign it or request an ID. I visited maybe 30-50 houses doing open houses, and a good half of those weren't with our realtor (or they arrived well after we did).
      - sib 5y ago
        I went to 50+ open houses in the 3 years pre-Covid (finally bought a place just before it started) and was never once asked for ID. They usually ask you to write down contact info on a sheet, which I do using intentionally impossible-to-read handwriting to avoid follow-up spam.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        Three years? Now I’m afraid to ever sell my house.
        fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
        I bought my house in a raging micro bubble in the Bay Area and got the first one I made an offer on. Really just depends how much you care about getting a good deal. I did some math and figured it wasn’t worth the effort.
  - brundolf 5y ago
    > scaling up beyond cultural norms This is a great way of framing a certain class of problems that I think people on HN tend to dismiss. "Technically we're doing the same thing as before!" Yes, but as we should all know from the engineering side of things, scale is still very relevant.
- deleted 5y ago
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- bennyp101 5y ago
  It's exactly the same as when they used to take internal photos of properties, only you can zoom and move around now in better detail. When we had ours done last year, I treated it the same as when we had the internal photos done - tidy everything up, put identifiable documents away, strategically place items over the logos/names of things. I did notice that when we went to view some properties in person, that there were personal items out on display - but the photos online were clear of anything - so it's more down to the homeowner than anyone else. The guide we got before any photos etc clearly stated to put away anything you didn't want others to see, both for in person and for online. "The BBC has alerted the Information Commissioner's Office." - I'm not sure why? If the homeowner missed it, and didn't follow instructions to remove before the photos, then I'm not sure that it is the fault of the agent at all. Edit - This is from the guide we got sent after a call discussing the same things: - The entirety of your home will be captured by the tour, and every detail will be picked up – so remove anything you don’t want seen, i.e., family photographs, clutter or boxes - Don’t leave pictures, portraits or drawings up that you don’t wish to be photographed (typically, portrait images where the person would be recognisable) - Don’t leave valuables and possessions in sight which you don’t want others to see - Please note: The technology does not allow for edits or retakes, so please ensure your home is exactly how you want it to be seen!
open-source-ux 5y ago
"clues about their political views based on their choices of reading material" Interesting. Millions of people have work-related zoom meetings (or publicly posted webinars) while sitting in front of their bookshelves. Many people don't have a problem with that. Some of those books might even be strategically placed so that they are in clear view. You can discern a little about someone's interests by what's on their bookshelves, but perhaps not always accurately. I wonder how people feel about displaying the contents of their bookshelf online while onscreen? I'm guessing for most people it's not a concern. Here's Bret Victor's bookshelf from 2015 which we posted himself on his website. Click to zoom: http://worrydream.com/Shelf2015/ http://worrydream.com/Shelf2015/
- vmception 5y ago
  I don't even open my kindle app around people anymore because of that assumption Glad I never got into bookshelves (and that nobody of child bearing age judges people on the lack of physically displayed books in their dwelling)
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    I don’t judge people by lack of bookshelves, but I actually LOVE looking at folks’ bookshelves. It basically tells you what their interests & philosophical history were from age 18 to 30 (and mostly in the college years) in a concise way. People change a lot over time; I don’t judge people on what they have on their bookshelf, but it definitely provides fast context for their worldview, providing background for who they are today and how their opinions developed. It provides an immediate jumping off point to discuss common interests and ideas. There’s nothing better for this purpose.
    - vmception 5y ago
      It's over its not happening anymore. You have to follow people's "stories" to see what they signal or post about, which is currently common for people that are currently 18 to 30. There is missing metadata in that approach just like there is missing metadata in the bookshelf approach. What we need is a way to make filter bubbles and echo chambers fungible. Like, we should be able to alter our user session to that of our contact's, with their consent. Transmit their whole data-broker profile to our computer and look at it. Or browse the internet and social networks as if you had their session, just to see how search results are different, how news headlines are different, which articles are shared to them, what their stories are reinforcing. That will be even more insightful than what your world used to be like.
myself248 5y ago
What's obnoxious is there's no interface to go in and blur the photos after they're taken. The software just isn't built for it; it's meant for agents to operate with little to no technical knowledge.
- bigmattystyles 5y ago
  If ever there was a job for ML. It seems like text detection and a classifier of what the text is, then blur that part of the photo. Same with brand names, art and logos in TV shows.
aaron695 5y ago
A good example of how the internet is not compareable to real life. Whenever someone handwaves "but that's always happened" In person, the chance of a local person traveling to your house to photograph a cheque is non-existent. On the internet you can script a search of all homes. Its all about the ability to search quickly. I see companies are getting photos of my front door now when packages get delivered. I wonder what we can get from that....
- munk-a 5y ago
  Maybe put a QR code on your door and see where you get hits from? Alternatively set up a honeypot by gluing a fake bill to your mailbox as if it's a letter dangling out with some personal information on the envelope? It'd be interesting to see if anyone is running any automatic extraction over pictures of mailboxes.
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  > A good example of how the internet is not compareable to real life. Whenever someone handwaves "but that's always happened" > In person, the chance of a local person traveling to your house to photograph a cheque is non-existent. This is the digital version of an open house. The same mitigation that prevents this behavior from happening in real life (i.e. setting up the house in a way where guests can't see your personal info) would have fixed the problem here. I can personally guarantee that criminals target physical "real life" open houses too, as it happened to someone I know. I suppose the internet does make it lower effort to exploit (especially from across the world), but it's at least 'comparable' in my opinion.
ekrebs 5y ago
Agents and homeowners have been taking photos of homes for sale for decades, and all sorts of private info has leaked this way. I’m in the industry on the tech side and I’ve seen photos of people naked in mirrors, signed documents, children, hobbies/interests, framed photos saying things like “Joseph Edward Smith - born Aug 6, 2010”, bills and more. This technology makes it more likely for the volume of leaked data to increase, and the photo resolutions give more data per image, but agents have been trained to stage houses for a long time and should be expected to handle this. Blame the agent. Although the tech certainly has room for improvement. All it takes is for someone to sue Zillow for exposing their private images online for automatic blurring technology to magically appear.
- deleted 5y ago
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- LordOfWolves 5y ago
  Beyond assisting with contractual matters and negotiation, I feel this is the last value proposition of real estate agents. We've had videos and virtual tours for a long time. I no longer need someone to show me around a physical space. Making the process of searching for - and hopefully purchasing - your "dream home" as smooth and safe as possible is arguably the best way for these agents to retain their jobs as we enter an age where much of what they do can be automated.
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    I can see having the virtual tours as a first pass to avoid needing to drive over, but they can't replace a physical tour at all. There's no sense of scale or size in the virtual tour, as images on a screen feel much different than being somewhere. You can't tell if the house smells of mildew. You can't have stand in the kitchen while somebody walks upstairs to see how much sound carries through the floorboards.
    - dTal 5y ago
      >There's no sense of scale or size in the virtual tour, as images on a screen feel much different than being somewhere. Judging by the ludicrous FOV estate agents typically use in photos, that's a feature (to them) - as are the other limitations you cite.
paxys 5y ago
Blame the agent, not the tech. Removing private documents from view, covering photos etc. is like home staging 101.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  We don't really do 'home staging' in the UK, so they wouldn't have known this.
  - Mauricebranagh 5y ago
    Its a thing for high end properties - but for the average right move property not so much.
alexwasserman 5y ago
I’ve also seen the reverse happen recently. A neighbor listed their house, then watched through their many home cams as people came for viewings. As they walked through the house she looked them up on social media, made easier having actually seen them to match faces to names. Then start ranking prospective buyers by their social media profiles, and behavior in her house as they looked around. The cams have mics so she could hear comments too. Overall was pretty horrific to see how she profiled people.
- Slippery_John 5y ago
  Why would she care so much - she's not living there anymore and isn't renting it so she'll never have to deal with them again.
  - websites2323 5y ago
    There’s a weird thing where home sellers are encouraged to be mindful of who they sell to. For example, in hot markets, couples buying a single family home are directed by their agent to send a photo of themselves and a letter talking about how much they want to be a part of the community, why that house is perfect, etc. I’ve never done this, primarily because I suspect we’d open ourselves to discrimination, but it’s a thing.
  - warkdarrior 5y ago
    Sometimes people make friends in the neighborhood and care about who takes over their house, as it may affect how their neighborhood friends see them.
azinman2 5y ago
> and said the estate agent "takes our clients' privacy very seriously" Always the de facto statement from the people that leak your data. I’d love to see a criminal say to the judge “I take your laws very seriously.”
teekert 5y ago
Why would you go through the trouble of making such an expensive and fancy 3d rendering but not through the trouble of cleaning the house a bit. I think these people have their priorities wrong.
- tobr 5y ago
  Are you sure it’s so expensive? Not sure how mature the technology is, but I imagine you could do it by just hauling around a tripod with a special camera. If so, it would be a lot less effort than a complete tidying up.
  - teekert 5y ago
    Well, maybe true. Depends on what the realtor charges for it then.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      We don’t have Realtors in the UK. And it’s not normal to artificially tidy the house before putting it in the market either - just not the done thing.
      - teekert 5y ago
        In the Netherlands this was also not normal 10 years ago, but it changed a lot recently. Now almost all pictures are highly stylized, clean and professional. We used to have a website called "foutehuizen.nl" which gathered pictures (from funda.nl, our main site for real estate) where something like 20% of the picture would be a bra, or one even, I kid you not, had the bare bum of the fotographer in a mirror. But that never really happens anymore.
        Avalaxy 5y ago
        This article goes into what people go through to get their Funda pictures taken: https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/lifestyle/artikel/5193700/perfecte-funda-foto-waaom-je-nooit-een-prullenbak-op-funda-ziet-het https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/lifestyle/artikel/5193700/perfecte-... Being used to this way of doing things, it shocks me how extremely messy the photos in the article are. As a potential buyer it makes it look so much better if you remove all the mess and the personal items.
Avalaxy 5y ago
How van you even sell a house like this? The pictures are a giant mess. In my country you'd clean up the whole house, remove anything personal and get a professional photographer to take pretty photos.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  We don’t ‘stage’ houses to sell them in the UK. If nobody else is doing it you don’t need to do it yourself.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    Sure we do. 95% of people selling a house will do quite a bit of cleaning and tidying before getting it photographed for sale. Take a look at the property photos for some random homes on rightmove - every bed is made, every child's toy put away, every coffee table and nightstand free of books - there isn't even a towel in the kitchen or a toothbrush in the bathroom. Almost nobody lives that way - they've just done a few hours of cleaning and tidying. Which is completely rational, if you're selling a home for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > every bed is made, every child's toy put away, every coffee table and nightstand free of books I think you're under-estimating what 'staging' is. In the US it's common to literally remove all the furniture in the house and to either leave it empty or to fill it with stage furniture. They try to make them look unlived in. If you go on Zillow in the US and look at some Californian towns it's intense.
      - michaelt 5y ago
        But it's certainly not unusual to hide piles of paperwork, magazines, bills and suchlike. Even the comparatively lightweight tidying process we use in the UK generally hides that much.
Black101 5y ago
Redfin did one of those when I sold my house and the agent was really good about telling me what to move... including personal pictures off the walls and staying away from the windows when they were doing the outside pictures, etc...
matbilodeau 5y ago
I was reading a local paper and came across this : https://www.lapresse.ca/maison/immobilier/2021-04-13/le-tour-du-proprietaire/un-bel-espace-eclaire.php https://www.lapresse.ca/maison/immobilier/2021-04-13/le-tour... The article states a name that doesn't ring a bell and mentions she owns the property with her partner. When visiting the link to the realtor's platform you are greeted by that 3d model. Some faces are blurred out, but mostly on paintings and some statues so I think the realtors just use automation and call it done. Visiting the study, I zoomed in on a cabinet with trophies and awards. Turns out you can read the name of that person on some awards, view his face on a photograph. https://www.viacapitalevendu.com/montreal-ville-marie-montreal-rue-plessis-triplex-20207116 https://www.viacapitalevendu.com/montreal-ville-marie-montre... Searching for the name in the article confirms she is the partner of a major news anchor in Montreal Qc. and that this is their house. I understand public figures need their privacy but obscurity shouldn't be solely relied on, especially if you have a newspaper advertising your house without saying it is your house.

87 points by salgernon 5y ago

This is basically like an open house. They should have prepped the house the same way before taking these photos. The high tech part seems not really related. The same thing would have happened with plain photos, or an in person open house.

munk-a 5y ago
They should've but the tech part is relevant. Obvious bad actors that are snooping around in open houses are certainly an issue but can be remediated a lot easier - you can kick those visitors out and bar folks with a history of snooping from entry - both of which work relatively well on the local level. I think tech is specifically relevant here since this is another clear example of scaling up beyond cultural norms using technology causing emergent security issues - the issues were present all along but there were some systems in place to limit how harmful they could be and technology has released us from those limits.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Typically in an open house just anybody can walk in, can’t they? It’s not like they ask you for ID.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    It isn't a public space so you can be barred from entry and, often, you'll be let into the house by a realtor. If that realtor recognizes you as abusing open houses they can just refuse you entry or take a more extreme measure.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      I'm not sure that I would trust a realtor to recognize war driving (war showing?).
      - krisoft 5y ago
        Realtors are there to sell houses. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them had a keen “nose” to figure out who is just “interested” and who means real business. After all it is in their best interest to not waste their time with lookie-loos. Obviously that doesn’t mean that one can’t pretend well enough once or twice, but not at a scale where this becomes a viable avenue to criminals.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        Having bought a house, I sure would be surprised. And IME if they don't think you look like you're gonna buy the house, they just let you walk around but ignore you.
        monocasa 5y ago
        From a house selling perspective it's probably in their best interest to simply ignore those people. Buyers with large pockets can come of as lackadaisical.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        It also seems like it's not worth a confrontation trying to stop people from coming in, from the agent's perspective.
        cortesoft 5y ago
        Yeah, very little gain, and a good chance to end up on social media branded as a racist or classist.
        lupire 5y ago
        Your speculation is contradicted by thousands of open houses every weekend. Seriously, go visit one and see what it's like. It's not the CIA Headquarters, it's usually a minimums wage newbie agent squatting in a house advertising for clients.
    - deleted 5y ago
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  - zaphod12 5y ago
    I've seen realtors ask for ID unless you're accompanied by another realtor (who would leave a card). Basically they want a record of people through the house in case something does happen. You could easily make a fake business card, of course... professional courtesy means a realtor seldom asks another for an id. But this would likely only work briefly in a given area once word got out.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I bought a house before and attended a number of open houses. I signed my name on a sheet but was not asked to present ID. In some cases (I guess where the realtor figured I wasn't going to buy? Not sure) they just let me walk around and paid no attention to me at all.
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      That isn't how an open house works (at least in my experience buying a house in Los Angeles in 2018). They advertise the hours, put up a bunch of balloons, and anyone can walk in. They ask you to sign a sheet so they can contact you, but I never saw them make anyone sign it or request an ID. I visited maybe 30-50 houses doing open houses, and a good half of those weren't with our realtor (or they arrived well after we did).
    - sib 5y ago
      I went to 50+ open houses in the 3 years pre-Covid (finally bought a place just before it started) and was never once asked for ID. They usually ask you to write down contact info on a sheet, which I do using intentionally impossible-to-read handwriting to avoid follow-up spam.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        Three years? Now I’m afraid to ever sell my house.
        fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
        I bought my house in a raging micro bubble in the Bay Area and got the first one I made an offer on. Really just depends how much you care about getting a good deal. I did some math and figured it wasn’t worth the effort.
- brundolf 5y ago
  > scaling up beyond cultural norms This is a great way of framing a certain class of problems that I think people on HN tend to dismiss. "Technically we're doing the same thing as before!" Yes, but as we should all know from the engineering side of things, scale is still very relevant.
deleted 5y ago
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bennyp101 5y ago
It's exactly the same as when they used to take internal photos of properties, only you can zoom and move around now in better detail. When we had ours done last year, I treated it the same as when we had the internal photos done - tidy everything up, put identifiable documents away, strategically place items over the logos/names of things. I did notice that when we went to view some properties in person, that there were personal items out on display - but the photos online were clear of anything - so it's more down to the homeowner than anyone else. The guide we got before any photos etc clearly stated to put away anything you didn't want others to see, both for in person and for online. "The BBC has alerted the Information Commissioner's Office." - I'm not sure why? If the homeowner missed it, and didn't follow instructions to remove before the photos, then I'm not sure that it is the fault of the agent at all. Edit - This is from the guide we got sent after a call discussing the same things: - The entirety of your home will be captured by the tour, and every detail will be picked up – so remove anything you don’t want seen, i.e., family photographs, clutter or boxes - Don’t leave pictures, portraits or drawings up that you don’t wish to be photographed (typically, portrait images where the person would be recognisable) - Don’t leave valuables and possessions in sight which you don’t want others to see - Please note: The technology does not allow for edits or retakes, so please ensure your home is exactly how you want it to be seen!

open-source-ux 5y ago

"clues about their political views based on their choices of reading material" Interesting. Millions of people have work-related zoom meetings (or publicly posted webinars) while sitting in front of their bookshelves. Many people don't have a problem with that. Some of those books might even be strategically placed so that they are in clear view. You can discern a little about someone's interests by what's on their bookshelves, but perhaps not always accurately. I wonder how people feel about displaying the contents of their bookshelf online while onscreen? I'm guessing for most people it's not a concern. Here's Bret Victor's bookshelf from 2015 which we posted himself on his website. Click to zoom: http://worrydream.com/Shelf2015/ http://worrydream.com/Shelf2015/

vmception 5y ago
I don't even open my kindle app around people anymore because of that assumption Glad I never got into bookshelves (and that nobody of child bearing age judges people on the lack of physically displayed books in their dwelling)
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  I don’t judge people by lack of bookshelves, but I actually LOVE looking at folks’ bookshelves. It basically tells you what their interests & philosophical history were from age 18 to 30 (and mostly in the college years) in a concise way. People change a lot over time; I don’t judge people on what they have on their bookshelf, but it definitely provides fast context for their worldview, providing background for who they are today and how their opinions developed. It provides an immediate jumping off point to discuss common interests and ideas. There’s nothing better for this purpose.
  - vmception 5y ago
    It's over its not happening anymore. You have to follow people's "stories" to see what they signal or post about, which is currently common for people that are currently 18 to 30. There is missing metadata in that approach just like there is missing metadata in the bookshelf approach. What we need is a way to make filter bubbles and echo chambers fungible. Like, we should be able to alter our user session to that of our contact's, with their consent. Transmit their whole data-broker profile to our computer and look at it. Or browse the internet and social networks as if you had their session, just to see how search results are different, how news headlines are different, which articles are shared to them, what their stories are reinforcing. That will be even more insightful than what your world used to be like.

myself248 5y ago

What's obnoxious is there's no interface to go in and blur the photos after they're taken. The software just isn't built for it; it's meant for agents to operate with little to no technical knowledge.

bigmattystyles 5y ago
If ever there was a job for ML. It seems like text detection and a classifier of what the text is, then blur that part of the photo. Same with brand names, art and logos in TV shows.

aaron695 5y ago

A good example of how the internet is not compareable to real life. Whenever someone handwaves "but that's always happened" In person, the chance of a local person traveling to your house to photograph a cheque is non-existent. On the internet you can script a search of all homes. Its all about the ability to search quickly. I see companies are getting photos of my front door now when packages get delivered. I wonder what we can get from that....

munk-a 5y ago
Maybe put a QR code on your door and see where you get hits from? Alternatively set up a honeypot by gluing a fake bill to your mailbox as if it's a letter dangling out with some personal information on the envelope? It'd be interesting to see if anyone is running any automatic extraction over pictures of mailboxes.
cmeacham98 5y ago
> A good example of how the internet is not compareable to real life. Whenever someone handwaves "but that's always happened" > In person, the chance of a local person traveling to your house to photograph a cheque is non-existent. This is the digital version of an open house. The same mitigation that prevents this behavior from happening in real life (i.e. setting up the house in a way where guests can't see your personal info) would have fixed the problem here. I can personally guarantee that criminals target physical "real life" open houses too, as it happened to someone I know. I suppose the internet does make it lower effort to exploit (especially from across the world), but it's at least 'comparable' in my opinion.

ekrebs 5y ago

Agents and homeowners have been taking photos of homes for sale for decades, and all sorts of private info has leaked this way. I’m in the industry on the tech side and I’ve seen photos of people naked in mirrors, signed documents, children, hobbies/interests, framed photos saying things like “Joseph Edward Smith - born Aug 6, 2010”, bills and more. This technology makes it more likely for the volume of leaked data to increase, and the photo resolutions give more data per image, but agents have been trained to stage houses for a long time and should be expected to handle this. Blame the agent. Although the tech certainly has room for improvement. All it takes is for someone to sue Zillow for exposing their private images online for automatic blurring technology to magically appear.

deleted 5y ago
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LordOfWolves 5y ago
Beyond assisting with contractual matters and negotiation, I feel this is the last value proposition of real estate agents. We've had videos and virtual tours for a long time. I no longer need someone to show me around a physical space. Making the process of searching for - and hopefully purchasing - your "dream home" as smooth and safe as possible is arguably the best way for these agents to retain their jobs as we enter an age where much of what they do can be automated.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  I can see having the virtual tours as a first pass to avoid needing to drive over, but they can't replace a physical tour at all. There's no sense of scale or size in the virtual tour, as images on a screen feel much different than being somewhere. You can't tell if the house smells of mildew. You can't have stand in the kitchen while somebody walks upstairs to see how much sound carries through the floorboards.
  - dTal 5y ago
    >There's no sense of scale or size in the virtual tour, as images on a screen feel much different than being somewhere. Judging by the ludicrous FOV estate agents typically use in photos, that's a feature (to them) - as are the other limitations you cite.

paxys 5y ago

Blame the agent, not the tech. Removing private documents from view, covering photos etc. is like home staging 101.

chrisseaton 5y ago
We don't really do 'home staging' in the UK, so they wouldn't have known this.
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Its a thing for high end properties - but for the average right move property not so much.

alexwasserman 5y ago

I’ve also seen the reverse happen recently. A neighbor listed their house, then watched through their many home cams as people came for viewings. As they walked through the house she looked them up on social media, made easier having actually seen them to match faces to names. Then start ranking prospective buyers by their social media profiles, and behavior in her house as they looked around. The cams have mics so she could hear comments too. Overall was pretty horrific to see how she profiled people.

Slippery_John 5y ago
Why would she care so much - she's not living there anymore and isn't renting it so she'll never have to deal with them again.
- websites2323 5y ago
  There’s a weird thing where home sellers are encouraged to be mindful of who they sell to. For example, in hot markets, couples buying a single family home are directed by their agent to send a photo of themselves and a letter talking about how much they want to be a part of the community, why that house is perfect, etc. I’ve never done this, primarily because I suspect we’d open ourselves to discrimination, but it’s a thing.
- warkdarrior 5y ago
  Sometimes people make friends in the neighborhood and care about who takes over their house, as it may affect how their neighborhood friends see them.

azinman2 5y ago

> and said the estate agent "takes our clients' privacy very seriously" Always the de facto statement from the people that leak your data. I’d love to see a criminal say to the judge “I take your laws very seriously.”

teekert 5y ago

Why would you go through the trouble of making such an expensive and fancy 3d rendering but not through the trouble of cleaning the house a bit. I think these people have their priorities wrong.

tobr 5y ago
Are you sure it’s so expensive? Not sure how mature the technology is, but I imagine you could do it by just hauling around a tripod with a special camera. If so, it would be a lot less effort than a complete tidying up.
- teekert 5y ago
  Well, maybe true. Depends on what the realtor charges for it then.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    We don’t have Realtors in the UK. And it’s not normal to artificially tidy the house before putting it in the market either - just not the done thing.
    - teekert 5y ago
      In the Netherlands this was also not normal 10 years ago, but it changed a lot recently. Now almost all pictures are highly stylized, clean and professional. We used to have a website called "foutehuizen.nl" which gathered pictures (from funda.nl, our main site for real estate) where something like 20% of the picture would be a bra, or one even, I kid you not, had the bare bum of the fotographer in a mirror. But that never really happens anymore.
      - Avalaxy 5y ago
        This article goes into what people go through to get their Funda pictures taken: https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/lifestyle/artikel/5193700/perfecte-funda-foto-waaom-je-nooit-een-prullenbak-op-funda-ziet-het https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/lifestyle/artikel/5193700/perfecte-... Being used to this way of doing things, it shocks me how extremely messy the photos in the article are. As a potential buyer it makes it look so much better if you remove all the mess and the personal items.

Avalaxy 5y ago

How van you even sell a house like this? The pictures are a giant mess. In my country you'd clean up the whole house, remove anything personal and get a professional photographer to take pretty photos.

chrisseaton 5y ago
We don’t ‘stage’ houses to sell them in the UK. If nobody else is doing it you don’t need to do it yourself.
- michaelt 5y ago
  Sure we do. 95% of people selling a house will do quite a bit of cleaning and tidying before getting it photographed for sale. Take a look at the property photos for some random homes on rightmove - every bed is made, every child's toy put away, every coffee table and nightstand free of books - there isn't even a towel in the kitchen or a toothbrush in the bathroom. Almost nobody lives that way - they've just done a few hours of cleaning and tidying. Which is completely rational, if you're selling a home for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > every bed is made, every child's toy put away, every coffee table and nightstand free of books I think you're under-estimating what 'staging' is. In the US it's common to literally remove all the furniture in the house and to either leave it empty or to fill it with stage furniture. They try to make them look unlived in. If you go on Zillow in the US and look at some Californian towns it's intense.
    - michaelt 5y ago
      But it's certainly not unusual to hide piles of paperwork, magazines, bills and suchlike. Even the comparatively lightweight tidying process we use in the UK generally hides that much.

Black101 5y ago

Redfin did one of those when I sold my house and the agent was really good about telling me what to move... including personal pictures off the walls and staying away from the windows when they were doing the outside pictures, etc...

matbilodeau 5y ago

I was reading a local paper and came across this : https://www.lapresse.ca/maison/immobilier/2021-04-13/le-tour-du-proprietaire/un-bel-espace-eclaire.php https://www.lapresse.ca/maison/immobilier/2021-04-13/le-tour... The article states a name that doesn't ring a bell and mentions she owns the property with her partner. When visiting the link to the realtor's platform you are greeted by that 3d model. Some faces are blurred out, but mostly on paintings and some statues so I think the realtors just use automation and call it done. Visiting the study, I zoomed in on a cabinet with trophies and awards. Turns out you can read the name of that person on some awards, view his face on a photograph. https://www.viacapitalevendu.com/montreal-ville-marie-montreal-rue-plessis-triplex-20207116 https://www.viacapitalevendu.com/montreal-ville-marie-montre... Searching for the name in the article confirms she is the partner of a major news anchor in Montreal Qc. and that this is their house. I understand public figures need their privacy but obscurity shouldn't be solely relied on, especially if you have a newspaper advertising your house without saying it is your house.