Last May, Iona Derman received an email from a Yahoo account bearing her name and the sunny subject line, “Hi Iona Sue!”
She opened it and was stunned to see that it was full of personal details: several homes she had rented, bought, and sold over the years; phone numbers; her husband’s name; where she had gotten her master’s degree in library science; and, most disturbingly, the address of her daughter and son-in-law.
“Do you get the point?” the sender wrote. “You cannot hide your identity and get away with this libelous activity without consequences. So please stop posting active real estate listings now.”
It wasn’t the first time the 72-year-old had been threatened over what was meant to be a lighthearted retirement project: an Instagram account called SF Daily Photo (opens in new tab) that began a decade ago and has grown to more than 60,000 followers for her decidedly preservationist take on (mostly) San Francisco properties. But the previous threats were legal in nature: cease-and-desist letters from Compass and Vanguard lawyers demanding she take down unauthorized photos of agents’ listings.
This email was far more unnerving.
An excerpt from the anonymous email, with personal information redacted. | Source: Courtesy Iona Derman
She sent a complaint to Yahoo, which said it would investigate. When she followed up, the details the company provided were scant. She sent an email to the address, but it bounced back, apparently deactivated after its mission was complete.
In the 18 months since she received the email, she is no closer to solving the whodunit, though she is convinced it came from a real estate agent, not a homeowner. (Realtors have greater access to personal records and more to lose, she reasoned.) Representatives of both camps have asked her to remove posts and pictures over the years. She said she has always obliged, even without the threat of legal action.
“It wasn’t a big deal. I’m not earning money from this,” she said.
Recently, she decided to fight back after learning that photographers almost always retain the copyright to their photos, which gives the real estate agents who paid for them no say over what she does with them.
Her Instagram bio now describes her as “Doxxed but not Deterred,” and despite long being anonymous on her account, she decided to come forward for this story. Staying silent would give whoever is trying to intimidate her exactly what they want. And she’s not the kind of person to reward bad behavior.
“I’m basically a pretty trusting person and believe that professionals will behave like professionals and that people, for the most part, do the right thing,” Derman said. “I’ve come to find out that that is simply not true.”
Two tough cookies
Derman describes herself as “a pretty tough cookie from Brooklyn,” despite decades living in the Bay Area. The one time she recalled taking a break from her daily posts is when she was in the hospital due to a heart condition.
For a born and raised New Yorker, there may be no greater insult than to be considered a chump. Much of Derman’s anger comes from feeling like the agencies legal threats have made her “stupid enough” to do their bidding.
Derman considers herself “a pretty tough cookie from Brooklyn” and is angry the agencies lawyers’ letters made her ”stupid enough” to take down photos they didn’t own.
Vanguard agent Ilana Minkoff was also born in New York, though her family moved 20 miles away to South Orange, New Jersey. As someone who’s done deals around the country, Minkoff said agents in San Francisco are among the best behaved.
“We don’t play dirty, for the most part,” Minkoff said. “We all have one singular goal: to get the best deal for our clients and to take it over the finish line.”
SF Daily Photo’s snark can come into conflict with that objective. Derman’s posts have poked fun at Realtor-speak like “oasis” for a home accessible only via staircase (opens in new tab). In another case, she referred to a (opens in new tab) listing as such a “discombobulated mess that it’s hard to say which is worse, the Before or the After.”
Derman has the right to say whatever she wants, Minkoff said, but she went beyond freedom of speech when she used AI to change the color of the facade on a Vanguard listing last year. When Minkoff called her on the digital edits in the comments, Derman claimed that the listing photos (opens in new tab) were already enhanced with digital ducks and computer-generated children.
Minkoff said that wasn’t true. Her colleague’s Easter photo shoot was “100% a marketing stunt” but also “100% real.”
“He paid for a flock of baby ducks to float around in a bathtub,” she said.
The squawk over the ducks made Minkoff look back at other SF Daily Photo posts. She found one that used photos from one of her listings a few years back in the Haight.
The spat prompted Derman to post publicly that Minkoff was a listing agent with no listings. Minkoff responded that she has active listing agreements and represents numerous buyers.
“If somebody publicly is going to make a defamatory statement about me or my business that’s factually wrong, I think it’s fair for me to ask them to stop and correct it,” Minkoff said.
A heated back-and-forth exchange continued over direct message, ending with the agent writing, “You have gone after the wrong person. Best of luck to you.”
Vanguard then sent the cease-and-desist letter at Minkoff’s behest, and Derman blocked her from the account.
Minkoff said after the letter from legal went out, she gave SF Daily Photo no further mind. She hadn’t heard about the anonymous threat, which she called “horrible,” and didn’t know Derman had unblocked her.
“I testify under oath with my hand on a Bible in a court of law, it was not me,” Minkoff said.
At the same time, she understood why another agent may have been pushed past their limit by one of Derman’s posts or attitude.
“You can’t expect if you’re going to piss people off that they’re just going to sit there and take it,” Minkoff said. “At what point does someone hit their breaking point?”
A photo a day keeps the lawyers in play
Derman admits that she toyed with AI for a time, and did use it on the duck post, but she has given up the practice. She also stopped printing addresses because of owner and agent appeals for privacy.
Derman said she has seen no evidence contradicting her claim that Minkoff lacks listings. She also doesn’t believe the post amounts to the “defamation” Vanguard alleged in a cease-and-desist letter that threatened hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
“This is someone that is extremely thin-skinned,” she said of Minkoff’s reaction. “I don’t feel like I did anything wrong here.”
In her view, the agencies are in the wrong, claiming to have a say in the usage of photos they don’t own.
Derman is right that brokerages without a copyright have no legal basis to demand that photos come down, said Tyler Ochoa, a Santa Clara University School of Law professor who specializes in copyright. The photographer almost always holds the copyright, he said, unless a contract says otherwise.
“She can tell them to stuff it,” Ochoa said of the agencies’ cease-and-desist letters. “If they wanted to try to push this, they’d have to file a lawsuit, and they would lose.”
Compass Regional Vice President Kevin Patsel said in a statement that the firm did not submit a cease-and-desist letter to Derman, but one of its agents, who are independent contractors, may have. (The letter Denman received is signed by Compass in-house counsel Chung Ho Chan.)
“We would not request a creator take down their content,“ Patsel said.
Derman has doubled down on her right to free speech and said she will only respond to photographers’ requests to take down photos posted without their permission.
Vanguard President Frank Nolan said he didn’t know the company’s lawyers sent the letter and had never heard of SF Daily Photo. He called the episode “very San Francisco” and immediately began following the account.
“There’s a lot of nosy neighbors at any given time,” he said. “Real estate’s always been like a sport, but it’s become even more of a sport. Everybody wants to see it.”
At the same time, privacy has never been more paramount. He could imagine an anxious agent getting an earful and sending Derman a sharp demand for a client who felt embarrassed when their home was made fun of on the account.
Derman is proud of all the research that goes into her pointed take on properties and laughed off the idea that her posts might be causing real pain to Realtors.
“I say negative things. I create stories that are snarky and fun, and people laugh at it,” she said. “Who am I hurting by doing this? Really, are the ducks getting hurt?”
Her copyright awakening has only caused her to double down on that stance. She recently reached out to the photographer of Minkoff’s old listing in the Haight, and when that person gave her permission, she triumphantly posted the photos (opens in new tab) once again.
She said she’s no longer going to be cowed into removing pictures unless the photographer asks her to do so. When a photographer does ask her to remove photos at the behest of an agent, as one did about a month ago (opens in new tab), she does. But she also told her followers what had happened and was public about being “pissed.”
Derman said the account’s focus has shifted over the years. Lately she has added historic photos from city records, alongside her own pictures and, yes, listing photos she likely didn’t get permission to use. SF Daily Photo will keep evolving, she said, because the only person she has to please is herself.
“I’m gonna keep doing it as long as it’s fun, and that’s it,” she said.