I’ve been a keen visitor to http://www.openmedia.fr amongst other French property web sites as a tool to help identify a suitable vacation property. Yesterday, I was browsing the details of some Provençal villas in a place called Flayosc (in the Var department in the south of France) and noticed that one particular house was offered by four different agents. It’s quite common in France to list a house with different agents and the agent that sells the house in the end is the one who is rewarded with the fee. The interesting thing in this case was that two agents had posted the same photo.

Two views of a villa in Flayosc

However, one agent had clearly decided that some Photoshop work had to be done to transform the green uncared for look of the pool into the sparkling waters that are only possible when a pool has been carefully maintained. Unfortunately, the editing wasn’t particularly well done (perhaps a tad too much use of the “clone” tool?) and the false azure blue of the doctored pool screams out of the resulting photo.

All of this goes to prove once again that you can’t believe everything that you see in a photo. It might also reinforce the opinion that some might hold about the business ethics of certain people in the property game…

– Tony