I built SEAREI — compliance certification for virtual staging (CA AB 723 just went live)

Hey PH 👋 I'm Sam, co-founder & CTO of SEATECHONE, based in Seattle.

We built SEAREI (searei.com) after realizing virtual staging had a serious legal blind spot.

The problem: virtual staging works great for selling homes — but as of January 1, 2026, California AB 723 makes it illegal to publish a digitally altered listing photo without a disclosure label, a public link to the original, and a retention record. NWMLS, NAR 2026, and British Columbia all have their own versions too. The liability falls on the agent and brokerage.

Most staging tools just deliver a pretty image and walk away. Agents are left to figure out the compliance piece themselves — or worse, they don't know they need to.

What SEAREI does: every staged photo is automatically delivered with four things baked in — a disclosure label on the image, a public verification page showing the original, a tamper-evident SHA-256 certificate, and a full audit trail. Anyone can verify a listing at app.searei.com/verify.

We serve individual agents, photographers, and brokerages in Washington and California. Before building this, I led luxury interior design projects in Las Vegas (Waldorf Astoria, Mandarin Oriental), so I know what quality staging should look like — and why agents deserve a tool that's both beautiful and legally safe.

Happy to answer questions from anyone in proptech, real estate, or legal-tech. Always looking for feedback from fellow builders too.