For sale – by bot

Ah, kids.

They bank with never going to a branch. They buy pants and shoes they never try on from a website. They shop for groceries digitally. They buy cars online. And, weird as it may be, purchasing a home you’ve never actually visited is a thing.

The café I had a business meeting in yesterday had 16 chairs within view. Sixteen patrons. All young. And every single person was staring into their phone, choosing that over the person they were with. That’s the world today.

Now, along comes AI to make things a whole lot worse. Less human. More algo. Greater risk.

On Friday we boldly proclaimed no stinkin’chatboy was ever going to write this blog. We proudly own every word, typo, ackward phrase, spelling mistake, dog meme, dodgy reference, tarted-up argument and occasional insight. This is more than you can say about a lot of crap on your phone.

Like real estate listings.

The house below came onto the market recently in the Montreal burb of Terrebonne – home to about 120,000 people and a boatload of realtors. Pretty plain-looking place with a sketchy temp garage and less curb appeal than Pam Bondi.

But after Re/Max agent Jean-Michael Girard finished with it, the place had been transformed for the all-important online audience of young buyers seeking something listed for under $700,000. AI tools were employed to add windows. Manufacture additional dormers. Make windows and doors, including the garage, larger. Add a fence. Move the shrubs. Remove a door. Turn on the lights. Sex it up.

And, voila!

After local media called this fakery out, the company fessed up. “We sincerely regret this incident,” Villeneuve told CTV News. “We attach the utmost importance to the accurate visual representation and faithful reflection of the actual appearance of the properties we market.”

As for the regulator, there was a bunch of cluck-clucking but apparently no disciplinary action once the altered image was removed. The body is taking pride in being the first in Canada to embrace AI, “provided it is used in an ethical and transparent manner.”

“If an image is generated or retouched using AI, this must be clearly indicated. AI must never be used to modify or conceal anything that could mislead the public,” it says. That probably means Re/Max might have gotten away with this by noting, ‘Cette image a été modifiée à l’aide de l’intelligence artificielle.’

Like so many other businesses, AI is transfordming the way house-floggers do their job. The bots now write MLS listings based on photos and a few verbal instructions from the listing agent. The virtual staging AI bot can turn the rooms of an empty house into a Martha Stewart orgy of pillows, draperies, love seats and the kind of carpets nobody walks on. Other bots let agents create walk-through videos and auto-generate social media posts, as well as instantly fabricating marketing campaigns across platforms like FB, Insta and TikTok.

Phoning about a nice house you saw in Terrebonne with fetching dormers? The call might well be taken by an AI agent, maybe from RealtyChat or BrokerBot, which will mimic the human agent, answer property questions and lock in your info. Meanwhile the fact you clicked onto a listing can be recorded and tracked by a predictive analysis bot like AgentLocator, designed to identify leads and initiate marketing.

Still interested? How does the price being asked compare with other places in the hood?

There’s a bot for that. A few, actually. Roytal LePage’s QuickQuote instantly analuyzes sold data and churns out property valauations. Other AI agents make forecasts of pricing based on current economic and market trends. If the home you’re assessing is a condo, then another AI bot may be used to churn through sheaves of condo corp documents, eliminating the need for a formal and costly search by a knowledgeable person.

And, if secure an accepted offer, just send it to your lawyer. She’s got bots, too.

Just a hunch. But we may be screwed.

About the picture: “I got talking to some street folks this morning and I was complimenting them on their packing,” writes Jim. “They are able to secure all their worldly possessions to a small trailer and a shopping cart. Shows me that much of what I have is, at the end of the day, not necessary. What they did have that they deemed essential is two dogs. Very well behaved but in need of a bath.”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/02/15/for-sale-by-bot/