Photography For Real Estate

14 Responses to “Ethics”

• Dan Swander June 27th, 2007 at 5:18 am #

  This is my first post here, so Hi, everybody.

  Photojournalism requires that there be no adjustments to the photo whatever. On the other hand, I think the “whatever it takes to sell the house” position is the opposite extreme. Somewhere in between lies a set of guidelines that’s honest and fair for the Realtor, the seller, and especially the prospective buyer. It allows us photogs to earn a living and sleep well knowing that we haven’t compromised.

  I don’t think that allowing a hamburger joint to establish our business ethics is the way to go, either. Remember, these are the people who call thousand island dressing “special sauce”.

  My personal rule is that I don’t make any alterations to the photo that “materially affect the property”. I’ll swap out the sky, no problem. I’ll green up the grass, but not a lot. The grass can change with the next rainfall. We’re experiencing a drought in Ohio and, with sprinkling bans in effect, most of the lawns look like shredded wheat. Not very appealing. I generally don’t repair bald spots on the lawn. Brown spots, yes. Bare earth, probably not.

  Other than the grass thing, if I could have (or should have) changed it before I took the shot, I will. I’ll remove a towell that’s been draped over an oven door. I’ll move a box of kid’s toys out of the corner. I’ll remove a bunch of tangled wires running up a wall. I won’t patch holes in the wall, change the color of a room, repair a window or garage door, or blow out the doghouse with Sparky’s running trail in the backyard.

  I try to take the prospective buyer’s viewpoint. If the photographs don’t fairly represent the property, he’s likely to lose trust in the Realtor. We haven’t helped anyone then. My clients are generally Realtors, and I won’t do anything that could embarass them.

  We must establish our own code of conduct based on our personal moral compass, but it doesn’t hurt to have some guidelines in writing. When I first began my business, I had no clue that taking power lines out of a photo was a bad thing. Hey, I was new!

• Vince DeStefano June 27th, 2007 at 9:44 pm #

  Hi Larry,
  Recently I was talking to an agent who was annoyed that another photographer had given one of his competitor’s information on listings. Which lead me to write a privacy statement incase an agent ever asks me about confidentiality.
  Might be something to add to the ethics, as confidentially is an ethical topic?

  Just an idea.

  Thanks
  Vince

• Aaron July 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm #

  This is an interesting issue. My two cents….

  Many of the comments on this topic seem to be treating buyers as victims. When I am shooting real estate, I’m not working for buyers for buyers. I’m working for listing real estate agents. In this respect, they are calling the shots. I have removed power lines, dead grass, and neighboring homes (once) from exterior photos as per the agent’s request. When they ask me to do it I verbally warn them that it’s not the hottest idea and that the image will be degraded to some extent and may look “fake”, charge an additional fee, and then alert them in writing (an e-mail) that they should be prepared in case someone makes a “stink” about it.

  At the end of the day, “truth” in listing photos is the listing agent’s responsibility. If they are willing to risk their reputation by posting doctored photos then more power to them.

• larrylohrman July 14th, 2007 at 4:18 pm #

  Aaron,
  Excellent points.

  Yes, I’m not a lawyer but, I believe the listing agent ultimately has the responsibility for all aspects of the presentation of the home for sale and in the worst case they probably risk more than just their reputation, I can imagine a situation in today’s litigious society where buyers would file suit over undisclosed property defects where photos were doctored and the buyer felt they were deceptive.

  I think handling a request for photo modification as you describe (Documenting the request in writing and advising the agent of the downsides of the modification) is an appropiate way to handle such a request.

• Scott Hargis July 15th, 2007 at 10:13 am #

  Aaron, I’d be pretty careful about some of those things — if the listing agent (your client) gets a disclosure lawsuit slapped on them, it’ll take them about 10 seconds to decide that they never told you that was ok, and that it’s all your fault, etc. etc.
  Even if the agent as an individual remains loyal to you and supports you, his/her office will not hesitate to throw you in front of the bus. I’d get a waiver in writing absolving you of any liability.

• Chris Murphy November 20th, 2007 at 9:03 am #

  Dan you are right that the PMA does tie your hands on some things. Wide angle lenses are not one of them, but you could contravene the act by purposefully leaving out of a photo or taking out in post process something that would affect the price of the property.

  For example I would never clone out anything that is permanent. I would replace grass and a blue sky but I leave pretty much everything else alone. What’s tricky is, you could get into trouble for shooting a property and picking an angle that leaves out something undesirable, for instance a house next door to a petrol station if your image does not include the petrol station it could be interpreted as misdescription.

  However I believe its the agent that generally gets hit not the photographer.

• Matthew December 9th, 2007 at 7:59 am #

  Dan, I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the grass. “Greening” is the most I will do to modify lawns – which is generally taken care of during my color corrections. Temporary feature or not, patching lawns or visually altering the layout of the lawn is a big no-no in my book.

  I’m the in-house creative at my RE agency and often photograph the homes. This makes me partially responsible for the trust built between RE associates and their clients.

  One caveat to this gray area is the use of the label “Similar To . . .”. For example, if an associate comes to me with a photo of a house from a certain subdivision and wants to use it to represent another house currently being built in that same subdivision, I generally place “Similar to . . .” on the photo.

  I would certainly appreciate any feedback on this practice. I’m strictly a marketing person – no background in RE at all, though, I have learned a great deal about the industry in the past two years.

  Thanks in advance!

• larry December 9th, 2007 at 8:53 am #

  @Matt,
  The “similar to” photo thing you mention is standard practice in the new home construction business in the Seattle area. It’s very common for builders to use variations of plans (mirror images etc) and use previously built model home photos to market the variations. I’ve never heard of any problems or even buyer complaints from this practice. Buyers actually appreciate seeing photos of a similar home.

• Teri Short July 12th, 2008 at 3:22 pm #

  Hi. I am a Home Stager–I spruce up homes on the market so they show well. When I staged my own home for sale in Yuma, Ariz., I Staged it first and then hired my Journalism professor who was also a professional photographer. He had a strobe light that illuminated my front door, which needed lighting since the house was a north-south facing home and the front door never got natural sunlight. It looked great when he photographed it. Our house was also a basement home, and after I painted it a light (not white) neutral color, ( and Staged it), he shot it with lights, and it looked like a well-lighted basement, and I didn’t think that it was misleading at all. In the other posts that I’ve read about putting kids’ toys away and getting rid of visible wires, etc., —that is a part of Home Staging, and is not deceptive in any way. Staging is presenting a house in its best light, and I recommend it to everyone who is selling a house. My house sold to the first family who toured it. Other homes in my area took many many months to sell, and ours sold in two weeks in a slowing market in August, 2007. Thanks to my husband’s home improvements, my Staging, my Realtor’s marketing, and my professor’s photography.

• Sandra Evans July 15th, 2008 at 7:25 am #

  here in The Bahamas, I make it a practice to photgraph a home on a sunny day and at high noon. It might mean multiple trips to the home but it is worth it to me. If it is a waterfront home, I always use a depiction of the water as my lead shot, even if it does not show the home or, especially, if the home is not “all that”. I do level the horizon and crop. We have a practice here of posting our colleagues listings on our own sites (we do not have an MLS that is available to the public). I often have to edit other agent’s photos in the these same ways. The most I will do is clean up seaweed on the beach although my colleague raises the water level if the tide is low!! I stage homes and the property outside, putting garbage cans back in the garage and coiling hoses, etc.. To me, anything to sell the home means I do everything I can that is ethical.

• Monica September 1st, 2008 at 3:01 pm #

  As photographers I think we are there to make the best shots of the home possible. However I do not “tweak” my shots with anything more than saturated color and maybe some sharpening effects. I think its best to show the home in the most flattering but also the most realistic also approach.

• William July 16th, 2009 at 12:14 pm #

  We are commercial photographers who create images used to advertise market listings. We are not journalists nor are we recording documentary/historical information. The purpose of advertising is to generate interest in products. High-quality, attractive photographs create a competitive advantage for clients. This is true for fast-food products as well as for property listings. Viewing a professionally staged and produced photo of a hamburger creates interest in that product. Why shouldn’t listing photos use similar methods (excellent lighting, compelling composition and professional post-processing techniques) do the same? How many clothing catalogs contain photos of models who are much more attractive (as judged by the marketing director) than the general population? All of them do. Why shouldn’t home photos look as attractive as possible? I see no teleological difference between a Big Mac [tm] and a $1,000,000 listing when it comes to the fundamental purpose of commercial photography: create interest in the product as effectively as possible. If a photo is modified to make a hamburger appear twice as big as is actually is, this is not effective as buyers may not return due to disappointment (then there’s the FTC as well). Removing power-line poles is self-defeating as well. In real estate, misrepresentation and deception is especially counter productive because there are laws as well as codes of ethics that listing agents and brokers must follow.

  In some cases the Reator [tm] is the defacto marketing director responsible for the ad content. In other cases a brokerage marketing director is responsible. Photographers can choose not to work with advertisers (marketing directors) with ethics and practices the photographer considers incompatible with their personal ethics.

  I believe that Larry’s guidelines are reasonable and prudent. They should not be confused with a code of ethics. I think Larry used the word guideline purposely. A code of ethics has no meaning if there are no consequences for violating the code. So, the only ethics directly relevant to PFRE (unless the photographer is also the listing agent or is employed directly by a broker) are the photographers personal ethics. At the least, the photographers ethics must be compatible with the person who approves of the advertisement before it is published.

• henrique July 29th, 2009 at 7:44 am #

  I cannot agree with removing items like power lines. Buyers do sometimes buy homes sight unseen but certain they have seen the photos on-line and buy based purely in that basis. I have heard anecdotal evidence of buyers threatening to sue because someone cloned out power lines or even power poles. The rest of your comments are on target.

• visualdesigning February 14th, 2010 at 10:18 pm #

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