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\n Seen in this listing photo, Kelly Killoren Bensimon shows dog owners what it could be like to live in this Centre Street apartment with dark wood door frames.
\n Photo: Courtsey of Kelly Killoren Bensimon\n <\/p>\n
The fourth-floor one-bedroom at 130 Eighth Avenue in Park Slope is lovely, although not all that distinct from others on the market. The listing photos show chocolate-hued parquet floors and a galley kitchen with ample workspace, plus a generous\u00a0living area drenched in warm morning light. But what\u00a0browsing buyers might remember most is not the backsplash or the built-ins but another accessory entirely: the listing agent, Compass\u2019s Michaela Morton, reclining peacefully on the living room\u2019s windowsill in a flowy lavender dress, her bare feet stretched out along the ledge. \u201cSomeone looking at a listing is imagining a life,\u201d Morton, who is also an actress, tells me. \u201cThings that are empty or sterile don\u2019t do that, and that, I think, is a missed opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Compass\u2019s Michaela Morton stretches out on the windowsill of an apartment she is selling in Park Slope.
\n Photo: Andrew Brincka\/DDreps\n <\/p>\n
Catching sight of real-estate agents in listing photos long felt like blatant sloppiness or, less often, a bizarre Easter egg. Yet in recent months, brokers have popped up in apartment photos that would in the past have been filled only with furniture or, on occasion, a well-placed dog<\/a>. Scroll beyond the kitchen and treetop views at a two-bedroom<\/a> in the South Slope, and there\u2019s Compass\u2019s Matt Kirby-Smith, seated in jeans on a couch against the exposed-brick wall, looking right at the camera. For a studio at 5 Tudor City Place<\/a>, a photo features the agent, Becki Danchik of Christie\u2019s International, at one of the caf\u00e9 tables dropped outside the building\u2019s awning, with her dog, Bijou, at her feet. \u201cI thought it was a nice way to not just show the apartment but, like, a little bit of the lifestyle that comes along with living there,\u201d says Danchik, who herself lives nearby.<\/p>\n All of this flouts the conventional wisdom that prospective renters or buyers need a blank slate \u2014 albeit a decently furnished, or at least virtually furnished<\/a>, one \u2014 to envision what they would do there. As Kelly Killoren Bensimon, of The Real Housewives of New York City and Douglas Elliman, once told<\/a> Architectural Digest, listing agents instruct sellers to stash their family photos and creepy doll collections because \u201cpotential buyers don\u2019t want to go down memory lane with you.\u201d That said, Killoren Bensimon isn\u2019t necessarily against putting herself in the scene: At 240 Centre Street, where she\u2019s been the sales-side broker for a number of apartments (including her own<\/a>), she\u2019s popped up in quite a few listing photos over the years, crossing the building\u2019s communal English garden and standing<\/a> next to a dining table. She had one listing for a nearly $3 million two-bedroom\u00a0that led with a photo of herself leaning against the bedroom doorframe,\u00a0holding a fluffy dog<\/a>. \u201cI consider myself a value-add to the image,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes it needs it, sometimes it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Becki Danchik and her dog, Bijou, gives would-be buyers a sense of the lifestyle in Tudor City. Is this the creeping of influencer-reality-television culture into the brokerage world? Agents are already taking us on video tours that highlight park views and prewar moldings. What\u2019s the difference between that and throwing a photo of yourself in the actual listing carousel? \u201cIt\u2019s a separation of church and state,\u201d says Serhant\u2019s Peter Zaitzeff, who posts apartment tours of his multimillion-dollar listings to his Instagram<\/a> and stars in Owning Manhattan but doesn\u2019t inject himself into the pictures. The social-media side of it all is \u201cfun marketing,\u201d but actual listing photos should be seen as part of the business transaction. \u201cWe\u2019re selling a home, not ourselves,\u201d he explains. \u201cYou don\u2019t come with a home.\u201d Besides, with everyone on high alert for AI staging<\/a> these days, would-be buyers sometimes see agents\u2019 presence as evidence of ChatGPT chicanery. At least that\u2019s what just about every friend and colleague of mine thought: \u201cThe woman screams AI-generated to me,\u201d one friend said of Morton\u2019s listing photo. (For the record, it wasn\u2019t.)<\/p>\n \n As seen in this listing photo, Matt Kirby-Smith shows how a buyer might unwind in a well-lit South Slope two-bedroom. Morton, who is the lead agent for the Jane Advisory team, sees nothing wrong with it. It makes the job more \u201cjoyful,\u201d she says, but it also conveys real information, like the fact that the windowsill at No. 130 is apparently really deep. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell that unless there\u2019s a person on it,\u201d she says. It turns out her team has been at this for years, showing potential buyers that they, too, can be playing doubles ping-pong<\/a> in a Central Park West four-bedroom or hanging<\/a> on a backyard-garden sculpture of a Prospect Heights townhouse. The strategy apparently works, too: Morton says No. 130 got 17 groups touring the space over the weekend and is going to a best-and-final offer showdown today.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n![\"Becki](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/c5661c44a77144d7032a850f0e55198201-christies.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Jonathan Grassi\n <\/p>\n![\"As](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2b6421c6dd866907d5ce14a2dcf459f4af-411-15th-Street.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Compass\n <\/p>\n