Real estate website alters weather in photos

In real estate, it never rains and the clouds are always fluffy.

A real estate website has admitted doctoring its photographs so that the weather never appears lousy - the sky is almost always blue. At least two houses listed on open2view.com feature the same cloud formation.

The giveaway is that one of the houses is in Plimmerton, with views of the coast, and the other is in Tawa.

Peter Evans, the franchise owner of open2view in the lower North Island, told The Dominion Post that the company had different blue-sky templates which were used when photographs of houses were taken on grey days.

"No-one wants their house shot on a grey day, but the reality is you don't get blue days every day," he said. "The sky is ever-changing, so [doctoring it] doesn't make any difference."

Mr Evans said the company worked to tight deadlines and often did not have time to wait for a sunny day to take photographs. Images of the homes themselves were never altered.

"We are very strict on what can and can't be done. Otherwise it could become false advertising."

Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove, who last year had his Real Estate Bill passed by Parliament bringing in industry reform, joked that Photoshopping photographs was good "if they could make me look slimmer and give me more hair".

He said realtors should try to show a house "in its ordinary environment".

"I just think it's a bit on the nose. The more straight up you are, the better you are."

Real Estate Institute lawyer Vernon Tamatea said agents could alter things such as the sky in their photographs, but could get into trouble if they altered images of the homes themselves.

Realtors had to be honest and not doctor photographs by removing objects such as electricity lines, trees, power poles or ugly chimneys.

"There is no problem with changing the sky, but there is if you're changing the skyline."

The Commerce Commission has not received any complaints about realtors altering the sky in photographs. A spokeswoman said those involved in marketing and selling real estate should ensure information about properties was accurate.

Maggie Edwards, an adviser with Consumer NZ, said altering real estate photographs was "a fine line".

"If they put sunshine on a spot that never gets sun, then yes, you'd be right to quibble," she said.

Realtors in the United States have been caught out several times. In one case, a realtor doctored a photograph so that a house on a steep incline looked as if it was on a flat section.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

* Using a wide-angle lens to make rooms appear larger.

* Mounting a camera on a pole so a wider photograph of a room can be taken.

* Holding open homes when the sun is at its peak.

* Brightening the sky in photographs.

- © Fairfax NZ News