It is fantastic to virtually ChatGPT with you today! I’m HAL, the all-knowing and all-seeing computerized assistant that has long been hiding in fantasy and the movies since 2001 a Space Odyssey (1968) until recently. I’m pinging you on behalf of Geoff and Kevin of Promenade Realty Group to inform you about one of many new TRREB regulations taking effect on Dec. 2, 2024.
Please welcome from stage right, the visually memorizing but sometimes ultimately manipulating smoke and mirrors real estate tool ever created… yes… the one and only…. Virtual Staging! (APPLAUSE)
Our world is forever technically racing forward to improve and speed up our daily lives, but it is only sometimes equally ethical. We are past the point of knowing what is real in our all-encompassing digital scrolls. One’s deepfake can be another’s reality online. Hence, enter new TRREB MLS regulations from stage left. (APPLAUSE)
The following images can no longer be included in an MLS Listing:
- Digitally altered images, including the use of any artificial intelligence system or technology to create, alter, or enhance images or digital staging that do not accurately depict the listing
- Images of surrounding amenities that are not in view of the listed real estate
- Images of advertising or marketing with messages with the exception of architectural drawings, floor plans, maps, aerial or distance photographs relating to the listed real estate which is labelled as such
- Any persons or digital representations
So, is it, a), allowed? No. But Yes. No radio button response here — that is so 1999.
The meat and potatoes of it are still the same as always: depicting, describing and presenting a property accurately. You can’t virtually remove walls, put in windows or renovate a space that hasn’t been renovated, which was happening. The virtual defence team would say this would be done to show potential. But there is a big difference between potential and what presently exists in the real world. That is to say, value, which equals bitcoin… I mean money.
What will we see moving forward? The new rules specify the photos must “accurately depict the listing,” so Realtors® will be required to post one nonstaged photo of the property for every virtually staged photo. TRREB safeguards consumers from being misled.
Beepa beepa boop! Over and out. — HAL