Identify altered imagery
Use the visible disclosure controls for applicable results and keep the unedited source available for comparison.
Practical disclosure guide
Using virtually staged photos on your MLS®.
Boards, brokerages, advertising platforms, and jurisdictions write their own rules. This guide organizes the questions to ask and maps common requirements to Furnio controls; it is not legal advice or a promise of universal compliance.
Common pattern
Five requirements appear repeatedly.
Follow the required placement
Confirm whether your board requires disclosure on the image, in remarks, or in both locations.
Keep the original
Furnio stores the source separately from the result during the retention window. Download both for longer-term compliance records.
Do not conceal material facts
Use cleanup for temporary, movable distractions—not defects, damage, or permanent property conditions.
Review before publication
Compare the result with its source and confirm the image, caption, and placement meet the applicable rules.
Ask once
Five questions for your broker or compliance desk.
Record the answers before a listing deadline. Then set the visible label and prepare the approved remarks language consistently.
- Q1
Does the board require on-image disclosure, remarks disclosure, or both?
- Q2
Is exact wording required, including the phrase “Virtually Staged”?
- Q3
Must the original photograph be posted, or only retained and available on request?
- Q4
Are sky replacement, virtual twilight, or seasonal conversions treated differently?
- Q5
Does the brokerage impose stricter rules than the MLS® or advertising platform?
Suggested language
Clear, specific, and difficult to miss.
Adapt these examples to the exact wording and placement required by your board and brokerage.
Expanded option: “Virtually staged — furniture and décor digitally added.”
Some photographs are virtually staged to illustrate furniture placement. Original photographs are available on request.
Photo [number] is virtually staged. Review the original photograph for the property’s unaltered presentation.
Bright lines
Disclosure does not cure misrepresentation.
- Never present a digitally altered image as an unchanged record of the property.
- Never remove damage, defects, or permanent conditions that a buyer would reasonably consider material.
- Never use staging to conceal the condition of an occupied or furnished room.
- Keep your downloaded original and final image together for the period your rules require.
- When rules are unclear, obtain the board or brokerage answer in writing before publishing.