Recently the RESA Executive Council Committee made a recommendation to the RESA Board of Directors. They recommended it be a violation to the RESA Code of Ethics if “before” photos of a staging or redesign project were shared with the public in any form, prior to the project (redesign) being completed, or the house had closed escrow.
RESA’s responsibility is to ensure that our members are always at the forefront of best practices and after much debate and consideration, the RESA Board of Directors has voted to not make this part of the RESA Code of Ethics. Instead, the RESA Board of Directors is making this a “best practice” and each member should use their own judgment when posting before photos online.
To give you some background on the original decision, below was the committees suggestion:
“In order to honor client’s trust, confidentiality and serve their best interests, before photos of an occupied or vacant property staging are never to be publicly shared in any format until after the sale is closed. In the case of a redesign/remodeling project, before photos are never to be shared in any format until after the project is complete.
However, if a RESA member is seeking advice on a project within a private social media group, it is permissible to share photos of the problem space.”
To give everyone some background on why this was added, a stager shared in a public format the “before” photos of a property that they had staged as an example of the transformation that can be achieved when a home seller hires a professional stager. The property had not yet sold and the home seller became very angry that photos of her home in “less than perfect” condition had been made public. The home seller was embarrassed that her friends and work colleagues could see photos of her house looking very messy and uncared for.
The stager had told her that the photos that they were taking were for the stager’s reference only and would not be shared with anyone else – yet their contract contained a clause that allowed the sharing of “before” photos. This situation turned very ugly including the threat of lawsuits, claiming that the selling price of the house was affected based on the “before” photos being published.
Moving forward RESA members should use their best judgment.
Felicia has a background in production design and studied at Academy Of Art University where she had a focus in Motion Pictures And Television. In her free time you can find her reading about the latest marketing trends or hanging out with her husband in Disneyland.
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