// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
AI in property listings is false advertising, house-hunters say
Aston Vaughan estate agents said that physical staging can cost an average of £5,000 up to £50,000. This image was AI-generated, which added furniture to the room
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'."