Can tech keep agents out of trouble for listing mistakes?

On the surface, two potential areas for marketing misrepresentation in real estate have nothing in common. The first, inaccurate square footage, is a number. The second is an image, the listing photographs that help a buyer “see” a property online. AI-generated photography in real estate listings has been an especially hot issue in the news as of late. Both areas have the potential for making a listing appear more alluring than it really is and both can land agents in regulatory trouble. Can technology help agents avoid the serious risk of marketing misrepresentation or is it more likely to be the cause of it? Inaccurate square footage is not a new issue, but it is a persistent one. A listing’s square footage is often pulled from local tax assessor records or carried forward from a prior MLS listing and accepted on good faith without independent verification. Tax records are notoriously unreliable for this purpose, since they may not reflect additions, finished basements, or renovations. It’s not difficult to imagine how an inaccurate number travels from a tax record to an old MLS listing to a new one, perpetuating an error no one bothered to check. Regulators are no longer treatin...