Who else is looking at photos of your home on Zillow?
People trying to sell their house don’t think about that – they just want to attract a potential buyer. But those photos are accessible to everyone, including thieves and scammers.
What can they learn about you and your family by looking at interior and exterior photos of your home, or taking the 3D tour often included in such listings?
- Access points – where the windows and doors are, and which ones are more concealed from neighboring homes – knowing that in advance means less chance of being caught while breaking in
- Who lives there – is it a single person alone, meaning the house will be unguarded when that person isn’t there?
- The presence of an alarm system or Ring doorbell – or lack thereof
- Where your valuables are – jewelry, paintings, electronics, collectibles – thieves want to get in and get out as quickly as possible – thanks to these photos they may know exactly where to go once they get inside
Marketers and researchers are checking out these listings as well, to collect a wide range of demographic information about your family – how many children in the home and what are their ages? What are the family’s interests? What are their politics? Are they religious? What products do they buy?
“That’s just intrusive – not dangerous!” – but what if they collect that content and share it or sell it with other interested parties that have other priorities besides getting you to buy what they are selling?
What Can You Do?
First, trying selling your home without an online listing. Millions of people were able to buy and sell houses before Al Gore invented the Internet.
But if you still want to use Zillow or another real estate listing service, make sure to remove all photos immediately after the sale. And be aware that responsibility may fall on the new buyer of the home – and will require that buyer to create an account before being allowed to remove the photos. That will not just delete pictures from Zillow, but also from Trulia if a listing appeared there as well.
The process is similar on both Realtor.com and Redfin – open an account, find the “remove photos” or “hide photos” option, and get those images removed.
Take Back Your Privacy
From Zillow to Threads to the pizza place down the street, your privacy is up for grabs -
Isn’t it time you took control of your personal information before someone uses it against you?
We can help - Contact us about online privacy protection, or speak with your employer about providing this protection for everyone at your workplace.
