Story

The 3D tour I watched twice left the basement out entirely

I did the 3D tour on a listing twice before I ever drove out. Nice little house, priced under the block, staged in the photos with a gray sectional and a rug.

Two things at the showing. First, the furniture didn't exist. It was virtual staging, and it was good enough that I had built a picture in my head of a room with a sofa in it and walked into an empty box with a scuffed floor and a radiator right where the sectional had been. The disclosure was there in tiny text on one photo. I hadn't read it. That's on me.

Second, the basement wasn't in the tour at all. Not blurred, not marked, just absent. In the 3D walkthrough you go down the stairs and the scan ends at a black wall. I assumed a scanning glitch. It was not a glitch. The basement had a section of foundation wall with a horizontal crack, staged rebar, and a dehumidifier running with a hose out to a sump. Which had all been disclosed in the paperwork, to be fair. The seller's agent didn't hide anything except visually.

I keep thinking about how the tour is now the first showing, and how the choice of where to stop scanning is a marketing decision that nobody signs. Fourteen scan positions upstairs, zero below the stair landing. That's not a lie. It also isn't the house.

I didn't offer. Someone else did, four days later.

9 replies

kevin_lombardPG1BPRO5

Wait, virtual staging means they add furniture that isn't there with software? I have been looking at listings for four months and I did not know that was a thing people do.

nataliehsuSO1BPRO7

@juniper yes, and it's a whole small industry. You send the empty room photo and get it back with a sofa and art on the walls. Most places require some kind of disclosure that the image is enhanced, and how that requirement reads depends on your state and your MLS rules, so it's not one national answer.

karen_whitfieldPG4APRO7

The scan stopping at the stairs is doing more work than the fake sofa. On land I see the same move with drone video, the flight path just never crosses the wet corner of the parcel.

derekj19SB1B

Honestly a little impressed. Complete tour of everything they wanted seen, and a completely truthful paper file for the part they didn't. Nobody wrote a false word.

kevin_lombardPG1BPRO5

@plumb thank you. I went back through the six listings I have saved and two of them say enhanced image in the corner. I had read those photos as rooms.

sonia_alvarez Get yoursPRO6

The appraiser and the inspector go in the basement regardless, so the risk to the buyer is time and inspection money rather than a surprise at closing. Still costs you the trip and the fee.

jordan_ellis2ActivePRO6

@verity did you ask the agent about the missing section before you drove out, or only after? I would not have thought to, and I want to add it to my list of pre-showing questions.

luis_carrera Get yours

I've now spent an hour clicking through tours looking for scan gaps instead of doing the thing I sat down to do, so thanks for that. Garages are missing constantly. So are utility closets.

devon_pierce Get yoursPRO5

Adding a line to my checklist: count the levels in the tour against the levels in the description. Two levels in the text, one level scanned, ask why.