How to Remove Photos of Your Home From Real Estate Websites
There’s no shortage of real estate websites out there, and there aren’t too many of them to tell them apart—after all, they’re all designed to make real estate transactions easier. One of the things they have in common is that they all keep detailed information about properties, including photos, online, even years after they are sold, rented or otherwise taken off the market.
In other words, if your home or apartment has ever been listed for sale or rent, there may still be interior and exterior photos of it online, as well as other sensitive information such as floor plans. This is useful information for those who might want to impersonate you or perhaps call you at home in the middle of the night.
The good news is that you can arrange for images to be removed from these sites, although it will take some effort. You will first need to claim ownership of the property and then petition to have the relevant data removed. Here’s how it works on major sites including MLS, Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.
How to Remove Home Photos from MLS
The Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, is where companies like Zillow and Redfin get a lot of their data, so it makes sense to start here. This is usually where brokers first upload home information and photos, and where real estate agents get a lot of details by showing you homes.
Only licensed agents and brokers may access MLS portals (membership fees included). If you want your information cleared from source, you will need to ask the listing agent (either the one you hire or the one used by the other party involved in the real estate transaction) to do so on your behalf.
This is not necessarily a quick process, and the listing agent is not obligated to do this unless it is specifically stated in the contract (the idea being that leaving the information there saves a lot of work if the property is put on the market again). or if interested parties are viewing homes in the area and want to see comparable sales information).
How to Remove Home Photos from Zillow
While you need help removing details from the MLS, this is not the case for sites that pull data from there, including Zillow . To remove photos from this site, first log into your account (or create one if you don’t already have one). If you haven’t yet claimed the home as your own, search for it on the website, then select More and Claim Ownership . You will be asked several questions to help ensure that you are who you say you are.
You can then click your account avatar (top right) and “Your Homes” to make changes. Select the resource you want to manage, then select Edit Facts from the Owner view. To get rid of a photo, select it and click Remove Photo . There is an option to delete all images at once or simply hide them from view (so you can still see them). Click Save Changes when you’re ready.
Please note that Zillow does not remove properties and property information completely. “Our mission is to provide consumers with information and tools to make smart decisions about homes, real estate and mortgages. For this reason, we do not remove real estate pages from Zillow,” says Zillow .
How to Remove Home Photos from Redfin
If you can find your property on Redfin , the process is the same as for ZIllow: Claim your home (if you need to), then edit the listing. Once you’re logged in, hover your mouse over your profile icon (top right), then click Owner Dashboard and Claim Your Home .
You can then select the item from the Owner Dashboard, which will give you access to the Edit Photos button. There is no option to delete individual photos; all you can do is check the Hide listing photos checkbox and then select Save and confirm your decision.
Then only one home photo will be shown, and the Google Street View image of your home will replace whatever was there before. (If you also want to remove images of your property from Google Street View, we have instructions here .) As with Zillow, there is no way to completely remove a listing from the internet.
How to remove photos of a house from a realtor
If you’ve already gone through this process for Zillow and Redfin, then you won’t encounter any surprises with Realtor . Once you’ve logged into your account, you can click “My Home” at the top, then enter your home address to find your property and click “Yes, Claim.”
You will need to answer one or two security questions to prove that you are the owner of the property, and then you can visit the property page as the owner and not as a member of the public. Click the Edit Home Page link and you can change the photos that appear next to the listing.
There are some additional restrictions for a realtor: for example, after selling a house, you cannot make changes to the listing for six months. In some cases, you will have to contact your listing agent to make changes. And, as with Zillow and Redfin, there’s no way to delete a listing entirely.