The Truth About AI In Property Listings.
If you’ve been searching for a place to lay your hat recently you may have noticed the expanse of new content from estate agents proliferating into every crevice of your social media screen. Property listings now appear on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, traditional web sites, stories, reels and posts. Some even make it to LinkedIn.
This new reach is great for sellers and landlords, whilst the home hunter’s algorithm explodes into proptech gluttony.
So, what’s going on? There are two things at play here. The first one is that the traditional websites no longer pull enough punches to engage a new generation of home hunters. Back in the stone age two websites ruled the roost, owned the data and dictated the price to post a property for sale or rent. Now that alternative platforms have emerged with more pliable paths to advertising, estate agents are unlocking social media’s maximum value.
At the same time, our screen time behaviour as a human race has evolved .The standard attention span for screen switching is forty seven seconds, as reported by “Attention Span” researcher Gloria Mark in 2023. It can take up to twenty-five minutes for you to return to your initial project after an interruption.
Our attention span measured by TikTok, is 1. 4 seconds, according to an insider, at a special insider’s conference in 2023. Meta says the average thumb scroll is 1.7 seconds. Our brains takes 0.4 seconds to register a positive or negative emotion on a post.
The upshot of these stats means that brands have to work really hard to get our 0.4 second positive emotion on their post.
As part of the effort to keep your attention and emotions, platforms want to make you see beautiful things. Property is a category with the potential to be beautiful Who doesn’t love the guilty pleasure of Selling Sunset or the haphazard hovels on Cheap Irish Homes? As a nation we are practically hardwired to prioritise owning our own property.
Hence the rise of property content into every social media slot available.
For agents this presents a content creation challenge. How can agents fuel the insatiable content appetites of their potential buyers, meet the audience reach expectations of their sellers and get traction on their own branded websites and socials ?
The answer is AI powered content creation.
However………the side effect can be AI infected sugar coated Disney Dream House misrepresentations of standard or below average properties. We have been tinkering with and watching the market adapt various AI content tools.
Some of them are a reasonable enhancement, swishy videos, brighter windows, less clouds in the sky. Other tools make the average three bed semi look like a special effects gilded Saddam Hussein Pixar palace Which is annoying to the viewers and buyers but great for the agent clocking up stats, It was only a matter of time before someone reported the overuse of enhancement to the Advertising Standards Authority. This article from The Journal made us laugh out loud when we saw what happened.
A letting agent connected to property group DNG has apologised after it used artificial intelligence to alter photos on a number of its apartment listings.
Under rules set by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), AI in ads is permitted as long as this is clearly stated, and the real images are available “in proximity”.
In a statement, a spokesperson for DNG said the edits were “intended solely to improve the presentation and visual quality of the photographs and were not used to alter or misrepresent the size, layout, condition or material features of a property”.
According to The Journal, DNG said it is new to AI, and it’s issued a reminder to all its agents to ensure that they comply with the rules and amend any current adverts that deviate from them.
Full story here :
[https://www.thejournal.ie/article.php?id=7168769]
The funny thing is that the apartment was only a residential rental listing, which in this market would have rented anyway, without any use of AI. And as a tenant you would not be permitted under a standard lease to change any of the major design, structure or decorative elements of the property.
The crew here at Integrity Property don’t use AI to enhance any of our residential lettings or Sales listings. We use Canva to take out cloudy skies and shiny windows. Apart from that what you see is what you get. We make sure we list every property to its maximum potential with honesty and transparently. We don’t waste anyone’s time, neither viewer nor vendor.
Next time you see that glossy chocolate box photo of the perfect country cottage, take a look on Google Street View to see what you are really getting. Also, no AI was used in the composition of this post.
I hope you have lasted more than forty seven seconds before abandoning this screen. Thanks for your time and engagement. Don’t forget if you have any property queries or are just curious you can get us at hello@integrity.proerty.ie
