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As If Unaffordable Homes Weren’t Enough, Now Buyers Are Being ‘Housefished’

Don’t get duped by a housefisher.

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Most of us can agree that artificial intelligence (AI) has done a lot more harm than good. One problem it’s causing is the real estate agency is the rise of “housefishing,” where sellers are using AI-enhanced photos of their homes in listings to trick people into buying. Real estate professionals are warning house hunters to be on high alert and not make any rash purchases.

What Is ‘Housefishing’?

Similar to catfishing, which involves creating a fake identity using someone else’s photos, housefishing is a tactic used to trick house hunters/buyers with AI-enhanced photos of a home. 

“Housefishing is catfishing with real estate,” Luciano Oliveira, LL.M, a cross-border real estate attorney at Oliveira Lawyers, representing buyers acquiring property abroad, told VICE. “AI tools now let a listing repaint the siding, replace the flooring, and furnish empty rooms in seconds. Nothing about the house changed. Only the photograph did.”

According to Devyn Kern, a New York City real estate advisor with the Kantha Team at SERHANT, many sellers use........

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