Airbnb Hosts: Deceptive Photos Leave Guests Feeling Cheated

Our expensive Airbnb ocean view condo turned out to be just a small apartment overlooking a power plant lagoon, busy highway and a distant ocean.

When my friend and I walked through the door of what was advertised on Airbnb as a luxury condo in Carlsbad, California, a few years ago, immediate disappointment set in. We felt like we were standing in a small apartment rather than the spacious condo with sweeping ocean views, massive kitchen and huge living room that we fell in love with when choosing lodging.

Neither of us mentioned then how disappointed we were. But later, we each admitted that the photos shown in the Airbnb listing were far from realistic. In fact, we considered the images highly deceptive, making the condo appear much larger than its actual size in an attempt to justify the rate of $350 a night.

The vast ocean views pictured from the huge balcony left out the fact that we had to first look across the busy highway near the beach. The beautiful lagoon that our balcony overlooked was connected to a power plant with eyesore towers and silos. The balcony itself was nice, with comfortable furniture and a gas fire pit, one of the few photos from the listing that honestly portrayed the outdoor space.

My friend graciously offered me the better bathroom, which had a shower area that was large, spacious and furnished with teak benches and an en suite. So, those photos were realistic. That wasn’t the case, when it came to the rest of the rooms in the condo, though.

In the Airbnb listing photos, the place looked huge. The living room was filled with ceiling-to-floor glass windows with sunlight filling the room. Instead, what we found was a standard size living room not much bigger than one you’d find in a basic, two-bedroom apartment.

The kitchen in the photos was spacious and huge. But in reality, the kitchen was only about half the size of what we’d seen in the photos. The bedroom photos were closer to reality, but the ocean view window in my bedroom was really  more of a partial ocean view instead of the big ocean view window shown in the listing.

Even though we felt duped by obviously altered photos that made the condo seem worth the luxury rate, we didn’t fixate on the fact that we paid a lot more per night than the lodging was worth.

Wine every night on the balcony and good conversation took the edge off our disappointment. Once our eyes adjusted to look past the busy highway to watch ocean waves roll in, we even got used to the tainted ocean view.

But we never got used to the fact that the photos on the Airbnb listing images were deceptive — altered to make the space look two, maybe even three times as large as it actually was.

The condo price was far above what I would typically pay for a hotel, and this was a splurge for both of us, since the photos in the listing made the condo look like a celebrity’s home by the sea. What we got instead was a condo that wasn’t what it seemed in the photos.

If the condo was what it was advertised as, I might have booked the condo again, since I often vacation in that area. Instead, all the condo owner will get from me next time is a regretful sigh when I come across that misleading listing while shopping next time for lodging in Carlsbad.

Airbnb owners should keep in mind that posting photos that make the rental look more luxurious than it really is only puts off guests who trusted the listing’s images. Unrealistic photos may get more people through the door, but that deception is likely to cancel the chance of those guests booking the space again.