Detached Home in Desirable DC Neighborhood Gets Major Discount—And the Photos Hide a Wild Catch

A Washington, DC, home has been put on the market for far under the area’s median listing price, but the reason is buried within the listing—and online forums are not happy about it.

At first glance, 1007 Evarts St NE is a stunning six-bed, five-bath home, with a jaw dropping $375,000 price tag, nearly 40% below the zip code’s median listing price of $607,500.

The first nine photos on the listing show an updated, bright, and beautifully staged home with a perfectly manicured lawn. But flip to the tenth photo, and the image changes. The rest of the photos show a smaller home, stripped to the studs and in need of complete rehabilitation, both inside and out.

The key detail then becomes clear: a watermark reading “Architect’s rendering—not an actual photo” in the corner of the listing’s primary photos.

The property details tell the rest of the story.

At first glance, 1007 Evarts St NE is a stunning six-bed, five-bath home, with a jaw dropping $375,000 price tag, far below the zip code’s median listing price of $607,500 (Realtor.com)

The actual existing home that currently sits on the lot is seen above. The home is being sold as a clean shell for full rebuild (Realtor.com)

“Much of the pre-construction work is already done. Demolition is complete and the structure is down to a clean shell with the framing exposed,” the property details read. “The sale includes a DC-approved plan set for a full rebuild. The renderings in the photos show the finished home as designed.”

Investors, developers, and 203(k) rehab buyers who want to skip design stage and jump right into construction are the ideal buyers, according to the listing.

With that information taken into consideration, the severe price reduction from the area’s norm listing makes sense.

However, the listing has still received heat online, where one Threads user reposted the images with the caption, “This has got to be the most click bait home ive ever seen…..this gotta be illegal, right?”

The replies are filled with equally outraged users.

“Is that AI renderings of potential build and then the actual pics of an as-is shack???” wrote another user.

“The listing is deceptive because you don’t know what you’re looking at. I certainly don’t. And you’re right, you can’t advertise potential. It’s absolutely unethical,” wrote one user, who identified herself as a real estate agent. “The architect rendered pics should have never been included. Those would easily be shown separately to a potential buyer. If you’re selling a clean shell, that’s all that should be pictured.”

Online users questioned the listing agent’s claim that the photos weren’t made with AI, pointing out structural issues with the back staircase. (Realtor.com)

Others simply doubted that a six-bedroom, five-bathroom home could be built on the modest 5,066-square-foot lot. (Realtor.com)

The listing did have one defender in the replies: the home’s listing agent, Tohmai Smith. He argued that all of the necessary information is available in the listing, and if he was trying to deceive buyers, pictures of the house as-is wouldn’t have been included.

“It’s in the description: ‘The renderings in the photos show the finished home as designed.’ And they’re not AI. A licenses architect built them from the DC-approved plans, which convey with the sale,” Smith wrote. “The finished home is a $1.3M house. The $400K buys you the shell, the approved plans and a head start.”

Users continued to question his claim that the photos weren’t made with AI, pointing out discrepancies in the rendered photos and structural issues with the back staircase as potential clues that they weren’t made with professional architectural programs.

Others questioned the possibility of fitting a six-bed, five-bath home on the moderate 5,066-square-foot lot.

In subsequent replies, Smith explained the use of 203(k) loans to both buy a home and finance the renovation in one mortgage and further argued that the purpose of the renderings is to show buyers the home’s potential. Within these posts, he invited interested parties or those with questions to send him a direct message.

“Without these renderings, how would a buyer know what’s possible? Even after seeing them, people can’t believe it,” Smith wrote. “But it IS possible, and that’s exactly why I show them.”

The listing agent, Tohmai Smith, maintained that the purpose of the renderings was to show potential buyers the possibilities for the home. He wrote that the renderings were made by an architect using DC-approved plans for rebuilding. (Realtor.com)

“If we were trying to deceive anyone, we wouldn’t show the home as-is too,” Smith wrote on Threads. The listing does follow Bright MLS rules by including unedited photos of the home and disclosing the renderings in the listing’s description. (Realtor.com)

Bright MLS, which is responsible for listings in the Mid-Atlantic region and carries the Evarts Street listing, has a rule that any “Virtually Staged” images must be labeled, and no AI alterations can alter permanent features or hide defects, according to Imagen for Real Estate.

Another law has been proposed in Washington DC to require listings to disclose any photo editing and include both unedited photos and a written list of all changes.

Despite online controversy, the listing for 1007 Evarts Street NE appears to follow both the active and proposed guidelines, by including actual photos of the property and describing the state of the home in the property details section.

Realtor.com reached out to both Smith and Bright MLS for comments on the use of renderings in listings, but received no response at the time of publication.