Fake condo line ups, fake press photo ops, fake buyers... and now fake houses?- Updated

We've spent a lot of time this month covering the shenanigans of the local real estate industry.

• We've told you about fake condo line ups (wherein ads appeared on craigslist for people to stand in line for condo pre-sales).
• We've told you about fake press photo opportunities.
• We've covered incidents where realtors have been caught posing as fake buyers.

But has it stooped so low that realtors are now faking the very existence of the house that is for sale?

For the past couple of days the blogosphere has been talking about what appears to be the latest example of deception in the media (hat tip Many Franks).

Over the weekend, the Vancouver Sun carried a story about the most expensive home currently listed in Canada. It is located at 3810 Marine Drive in West Vancouver.

Google the story and you will find the two google links in the image above.

If you clicked on them on the weekend, they would have lead you to this story (this version was in the North Shore News):

Attached to the story was this picture gallery showing you this gaudy home, presumably for sale on this property:

Go through the gallery and you will see these images.  Each picture has a description of what you are looking at and the website of the listing realtor:

There's just one problem, there's no such house on this property.

Don't misunderstand, the property at 3810 Marine Drive exists - and it is for sale.  But the house in these pictures does not exist.  All of these pictures are fake in that they do not represent anything at this property.  

Here is what is really there:

It's a 50 year old tear-down rancher/bungalow.

How on earth do you justify showing pictures of a Versailles-style mansion in place of a 50 year old tear-down house?

When the Vancouver Sun was alerted to the fact the pictures were of a house that didn't actually exist on that property, the Sun promptly removed their article and issued this statement:

The Vancouver Sun last week published a story and photo gallery online about a West Vancouver waterfront home at 3810 Marine Drive listed for $38 million. The Sun has since learned that the photos on the listing realtor’s website are artist’s renderings and not photos of the actual home on the property. The home on the property is a rancher/bungalow built in 1964. Realtor Laura McLaren says the images on her website depicting a mansion “are renderings of what could be built on this property.”

So how is it that the Vancouver Sun came to publish this article and these pictures? Clearly when they learned the mansion did not exist, they removed the article and the photos.

Were they duped? And if so, by who?

If you go to the realtor's site, the Vancouver Sun is correct...  the house is a featured listing on the realtor's website, complete with these photos:

And nowhere in the description that we could find does it say the house isn't really there; that the photos are "renderings of what could be built on this property."

(note: the ariel photo of the rancher/bungalow is included with the photos of the Versailles-style mansion in the listing on the realtor's site)

But as Many Franks said, "Of the 19 images on the realtor’s website, two thirds are total fiction. There are only two photographs of the actual house you’d get with your $38 million. None of the interior fantasies include any indication that they don’t really exist."

Even if the press came across the listing on their own and published their story without any prodding from someone in R/E, what the hell is going on in the real estate industry?

Is it not a deception to list this property with these pictures without clearly indicating that the fictitious house isn't really there? Doesn't transparency demand at least a prominent notation that the house pictured in the majority of the listing photos does not exist?

Certainly the lack of transparency fooled the Vancouver Sun into running this story!

Was the whole purpose of the fake pictures a means to garner free advertising as the media runs this as a "news story"? Would any media outlet have run this story without those pictures?  We think the fact the Vancouver Sun promptly removed their story when they learned the house didn't exist speaks volumes.

How is it that the Real Estate Council of BC stands by and seemingly allows the public/press to be continuously mislead?

There are supposedly over 11,000 realtors in the Lower Mainland alone.  But the reputation of the majority is being significantly tarred by a few.

Allegations of media manipulation like the ones we have covered this month should be throughly investigated and serious wrongdoing should result in expulsion from the profession, plus hefty fines.  And the results of those investigations should be widely publicized.

The integrity of the industry is at stake here.

Is anyone looking out for the public in all of this?

I would love to hear the personal thoughts of some of the realtors out there in the comments section of this posting.

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UPDATE: The listing on the homepage of the realtor has now been modified and all the "fake" house pictures have been removed with the exception of the one exterior pic.  That single exterior pic used to be the lead pic for the listing, now it is not (it's number 7 in the thumbnails below).  Still unclear why that one pic is even there to begin with.

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UPDATE 2: The "fake" house image on the listing on the homepage of the realtor has now been modified to indicate it is an image of what 'could' be constructed on the property.


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