Pictures for houses that just sold instantly scrubbed from the internet

[Anonymous]

Listing agents can take down photos for the privacy of their clients, e.g. the people who pay the listing agent.

The photos are taken off of the on-line listings, but they are still associated with the MLS record. If you want comps, you can pay a RE agent to pull comps. Licensed realtors can still access the photos in the system for comp purposes.

So, you don't get free access to those pictures if the home owner wants them scrubbed off the internet. If you want them, hire a buyer's agent to do comps for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because people want their privacy. The new owners don't care about your comps.

But it takes months for anyones name to be associated with the house via updated tax records so if the pictures remain for let's say 30-60 days after the sale no one knows who bought it yet so they will still have their privacy. After that sure remove it, before that fair game for comps.

The interiors aren’t relevant to comps at all. The only things that matter for comps are square footage, location/lot size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms. How a house is decorated or updated don’t really factor in.

Not true. Updated bathrooms, floors, and kitchens matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I (buyer) asked my agent to take them down and he said he couldn't. How do I do this?

Ours absolutely were relevant to our tax assessment. Maybe they shouldn't have been, but when I called about an appeal it was clear they were a factor.

What’s the reason? As the buyer, it not your furniture etc. in the listing pictures.

I don't care about the furniture. I care about my privacy and safety. It's the interior and floorplan of the house I live in and I don't want it to be public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I (buyer) asked my agent to take them down and he said he couldn't. How do I do this?

Ours absolutely were relevant to our tax assessment. Maybe they shouldn't have been, but when I called about an appeal it was clear they were a factor.

What’s the reason? As the buyer, it not your furniture etc. in the listing pictures.

I don't care about the furniture. I care about my privacy and safety. It's the interior and floorplan of the house I live in and I don't want it to be public.

You think Ocean's 14 is targeting your home and needs to know whether you have an open or closed dining room?

[Anonymous]

Just use the Way back machine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I (buyer) asked my agent to take them down and he said he couldn't. How do I do this?

Ours absolutely were relevant to our tax assessment. Maybe they shouldn't have been, but when I called about an appeal it was clear they were a factor.

What’s the reason? As the buyer, it not your furniture etc. in the listing pictures.

I don't care about the furniture. I care about my privacy and safety. It's the interior and floorplan of the house I live in and I don't want it to be public.

This is exactly why we had everything possible taken down. The floorplans were included in listing materials. I don’t want anyone knowing the floorplan of our house. It’s simply isn’t needed. I don’t care about furnishings, updates or anything like that. I just don’t want anyone to have easy access to knowing where, they master bedroom is, where the exits are behind the gate and the like. Our house was on a home tour in Virginia years ago and we had an issue with people taking photos. We initially thought it was just rude people being invasive, but the tour administrators quickly realized people were taking photos mainly of entrances, exits and alarm systems. Not good.

You think Ocean's 14 is targeting your home and needs to know whether you have an open or closed dining room?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I (buyer) asked my agent to take them down and he said he couldn't. How do I do this?

Ours absolutely were relevant to our tax assessment. Maybe they shouldn't have been, but when I called about an appeal it was clear they were a factor.

What’s the reason? As the buyer, it not your furniture etc. in the listing pictures.

I don't care about the furniture. I care about my privacy and safety. It's the interior and floorplan of the house I live in and I don't want it to be public.

You think Ocean's 14 is targeting your home and needs to know whether you have an open or closed dining room?

I think most people would like a baseline level of privacy about what their home looks like. For example, I know of someone (a relative) who is a hiring manager who confided in me that she likes to do a Google search of the addresses of job applicants (not on her work computer) to determine how "successful" the person is, based on what his/her home looks like, and what type of house he/she can afford. I told her that I disagree with this. (Also, what if the listing photos are old, and the person has updated the house, so that the house is now nice. But still, the hiring manager thinks the job applicant lives in a less-than home.)

I think we should have privacy in terms of where we live, and I say that as someone who lives in a nice house in a very nice neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I (buyer) asked my agent to take them down and he said he couldn't. How do I do this?

Ours absolutely were relevant to our tax assessment. Maybe they shouldn't have been, but when I called about an appeal it was clear they were a factor.

What’s the reason? As the buyer, it not your furniture etc. in the listing pictures.

I don't care about the furniture. I care about my privacy and safety. It's the interior and floorplan of the house I live in and I don't want it to be public.

You think Ocean's 14 is targeting your home and needs to know whether you have an open or closed dining room?

Maybe not Ocean's 14, but there are house robbers who will use modern technology to case a house that they might want to hit.

I know someone whose house was hit after they posted on social media that they were going to Europe for a month. They posted with public settings and their house listing with floor plan was still on-line. Surprise that they house was hit while they were gone, and it was weeks before it was discovered because they didn't find it until they got home.

[Anonymous]

People, the majority of your new neighbors went thru your house when it was put up for sale. They know what the inside looks like from the open house.

[Anonymous]

How do people do it? I'm not able to scrub our pictures and it's annoying. They're owned by mls apparently

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do people do it? I'm not able to scrub our pictures and it's annoying. They're owned by mls apparently

you'll just have to email all websites that have these photos and ask for them to be removed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do people do it? I'm not able to scrub our pictures and it's annoying. They're owned by mls apparently

you'll just have to email all websites that have these photos and ask for them to be removed.

The listing agent can have the pictures removed from MLS. They are not owned by MLS. They are owned by the listing agent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I requested my house get taken off the second we purchased it. Nobody’s business what it looks like inside.

+1

[Anonymous]

We don't people to know the layout of our home so we asked for the pictures to be removed. Also some day down the line, we'll sell this house and we don't want buyers then to compare then and now and see what improvements we did or did not make.*

*We definitely looked at OLD listing photos to see how the house changed and to see if a seller claiming they put in the stainless appliances, new counters, etc, was telling the truth or not. Half the time they were lying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People, the majority of your new neighbors went thru your house when it was put up for sale. They know what the inside looks like from the open house.

I don't think people are talking about the neighbors. They are talking about strangers.