Keep an eye out for 'puffed' real estate ads

"I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house ... out of proportion?"

Traditionally, the idea of "puffing," or overstating the qualifications of a home in a listing or showing, has been an accepted part of real estate. But when does effectively marketing a property turn into something more disingenuous?

"Some consumers get very mad or angry if they've been enticed into seeing something that was really quite inappropriate for them," says Barry Nystedt, president of the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents, or NAEBA. "The puffing is part of what's going to go on here, but at some levels it verges on outright misrepresentation."

The NAEBA, an organization of real estate agents who represent clients only on the buying end of the transaction, recently released the 2008 Report on Home Buying Euphemisms and Lingo. In it, they asked member agents to describe misleading information they had seen in a listing, and then how that description compared with the actual quality of the home. In the Southeast, one listing touting a "cozy home" was actually found to be "too small for a big-screen TV." On the West coast, a home said to have a "low-maintenance front yard," meant that the front yard was paved over with concrete. And in the Midwest, a listing read "This house just had a total facelift!" which the buyer agent said "meant the seller painted everything, but remember, in some cases paint can't cover an ugly home."

According to Nystedt, some aspects of the home are more likely to be "puffed" than others.

"Room size is a pretty obvious one, and also condition," he says. "The condition is almost always understated. You'll read things like 'Ready for your custom touch' and 'Needs cosmetics.' Very rarely do you see an honest description about conditions."

In the Northeast, a buyer agent encountered a listing that said "damp basement in the spring." When the agent viewed the home, "there was three feet of water, literally rushing through the basement. The listing agent explained to us that this was an unusually wet spring and it would dry out quickly when the warm weather arrived."

Industry experts say this tactic, while sometimes effective in stirring interest in a home, does not lead to more purchases and can often backfire on a seller.

"It can influence somebody to look at the property, but it's not going to influence them to buy," says Dirk Zeller, president of Real Estate Champions, a coaching firm for agents based out of Bend, Ore. "I could be Ernest Hemingway, but it won't make a difference if my home isn't marketably priced."

According to Jim Remley, a broker and author of "Sell Your Home in Any Market" (Amacom, 2008), only about 6 percent of home sales come from print marketing, but agents use them as a tool to generate leads to potential buyers.

"I think the goal for an agent is to make the phone ring," he says. "I don't think that agents are intentionally bending the truth. They're going to write an ad in the best possible way they can."

"Most marketers inherently fudge things," Zeller says. "All you have to do is watch late night infomercials and you'd think we would all be rich and skinny. I'm not saying they do it intentionally. People's perspectives are different and you look at things through your own eyeglasses."

Zeller says recent changes in the housing market may contribute to an increase in "puffing."

"Do I think more people are resorting to that to stand out? Yes. I think more agents are resorting to anything they can to get listings to sell," he says. "There's more competition in the marketplace and there's more inventory."

Nystedt recalls a situation in which a couple looking for a home took time off work to go see a home because the listing made it sound beautiful. In reality, he says the house "was kind of a disaster."

"It makes them feel somewhat embarrassed, thinking 'we actually fell for this?'" he says, adding that the negative feelings often lead a buyer to look at all agents as the big bad wolf.

"I think it's had an impact on real estate's public opinion," he says. "We're somewhere down there probably with used car salesmen, and that's an unfortunate result of this."

In a 2008 Harris Poll, only 6 percent of U.S. adults said a real-estate broker or agent had "very great prestige," making it the lowest ranked of all occupations surveyed.

"I don't want to risk putting my buyer through that," says Zeller, noting that at his firm "we work on a higher level than that."

Although reading between the lines of a listing is often hard to to, Remley recommends searching for listings online, particularly ones that offer virtual tours.

"You'll be able to view images and go much, much deeper," he says.