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Originally Posted On: https://www.bbntimes.com/society/ai-just-disrupted-real-estate-photography-here-s-what-happened
Real estate photography is notoriously challenging to pull off.
For starters, rooms in homes aren’t the most exciting subjects. Photographers must leverage all their skills to make them seem interesting.
But beyond that, the preparation and work that goes into staging a house so that it is ready for photos is enormous. It takes up so much time for both realtors and their clients.
Fortunately, AI is disrupting the situation. Startups are finding ways to build tools to disrupt this industry and generally make life easier for realtors. The technology is now available to cut down on the time it takes to put a photo series together by half or more.
Why AI Is Now Sneaking Into Home Listings
AI is sneaking into real estate listings for multiple reasons, as you can probably imagine. The main one is the fact that homes take a long time to prepare. Realtors have to nag their clients to stage their properties ready for photography and make them look perfect.
That, of course, is hard to do. It requires homeowners to spend time doing it themselves, or pay a significant chunk of cash for someone else to do it for them. Realtors must then wait for the right moment and then arrange for the photographer to go over and capture the shots, which rarely works.
However, with Phixer real estate photo editing, that may be a thing of the past. The software developer now believes it has all the tricks it needs to hand the problem over to AI.
“Staging rooms in a property was time-consuming and often challenging,” explains Phixer. “But AI is now so advanced that it can essentially do it by itself. Rooms can be decluttered automatically, and listings can even feature focal points or elements that the homeowner will add for real-life viewings.”
This single change alone is a significant hack for realtors and investors trying to sell properties online. It means far less work.
However, that’s not the only place where AI comes into the picture. The technology can also enhance rooms’ natural appearances, making them more suitable for digital viewing. Spaces that would have looked drained of life can be vibrant and benefit from the right lighting with AI-based improvements.
For this reason, more than two-thirds of photographers and editors are now leaning on AI. It makes life so much easier and reduces the need to perform complex operations on software that requires a steep learning curve. For some in the industry, the advent of AI is cutting editing times by as much as 90%, offering perhaps the highest productivity gains of any sector. It means that the work is becoming easier and potential buyers are getting a clearer impression of what properties could be like, once they move in.
How AI Got A Foothold
Real estate developers are busy people and realtors have tight margins they need to preserve on properties. Paying an editor to edit all images was only really worth it on high-value transactions.
However, AI brings down the cost so much that this premium service is something that’s now available to everyone. Essentially, anyone can now benefit, which is why the technique is becoming so popular and widespread. Pro-level edits are available in minutes, and staging empty rooms with furniture just looks so much better.
“Many realtors are finding that they can sell properties faster, especially online, when they use AI,” explains Phixer. “It’s not just a productivity tool, but also a sales tool, giving them more options and helping their clients also get what they want, which is faster transactions.”
Interestingly, the presence of AI in real estate photography didn’t begin with advanced AI editing tools. In fact, it can be traced back around a decade to the use of drones. These added AR footage and aerial photography, opening up entirely new avenues for selling properties, particularly high-rise units. Drones democratised high-end videos and didn’t require an expensive helicopter to pull off. Instead, all consumers had to do was buy a relatively inexpensive device, or even hire one, to get the shots they wanted. Before long, real estate agents had noticed.
What It Means For Photographers
Photographers, of course, are split on the issue of whether to use AI. Some see it as “cheating” or “misleading.” On the one hand, many creatives like the idea that AI can help them do their work faster. Artificial intelligence massively speeds up the ability to do editing work.
However, on the other hand, it’s actually taking away work and making it easier for anyone to just take pictures of real estate and do a good job. Realtors are now learning that their simple snaps can be automatically upgraded by AI to look fantastic, as if they were taken by a professional photographer. Things like changing the frame of the image and using inference to see behind curtains and furniture is having an impact. Likewise, many AI tools can add outdoor scenes to images, again, improving their attractiveness.
“Tools like Phixer are providing so many options these days it is hard for many realtors and professionals who work with them to say no to the opportunity,” the brand explains. “Most tasks usually take a click or two, instead of up to a couple of hours using older methods. It means that putting property reels on TikTok is pretty easy these days and doesn’t require hours of time.”
The future, according to many commentators, will likely feature a hybrid approach of some description (as is required for so many AI-related tasks these days). What’s likely to happen is that humans will still need to take the photos and get things like the angles right so that photography is true to life. People will also be required for emotional storytelling.
Then, AI tools will essentially make the images look polished and cut down on some of the hassles associated with conventional real estate photography. The result is likely to be a real estate sector that can push out more content for buyers and, potentially, sell faster for clients.
