Ridiculous Photos Of Houses That Make Us Shake Our Heads In Disappointment

Shannon Quinn - February 26, 2023

Photo: Credit: Reddit

If you’re anything like us, you love scrolling through real estate photos online. (Even if you’re not in the market to buy a house right now.) And the world of real estate is full of surprises. From odd design choices to bizarre features, some properties leave us wondering what the homeowners were thinking. Luckily, the internet is full of people willing to share their hilarious and cringe-worthy photos that they discovered online. One of the best places to find them is the “Ridiculous Real Estate” subReddit. In this article, we’ve compiled some of the most outrageous and amusing photos from this subReddit. So get ready to laugh, cringe, and maybe even question the sanity of some homeowners and developers.

This One Room Studio Apartment in San Francisco Costs $1,400 a Month

The high cost of living in San Francisco is well-known. This is why there is so much homelessness in the city, even among people with full time jobs. As a wise man once said, “The Rent is Too Damn High!” But this photo of an apartment listing is on another level. The apartment is small, which is normal for a studio. But what really sets it apart is the fact that there is a shower in the middle of the living room. For the price of $1,400 a month, you can enjoy the unique experience of showering in the same room where you eat, sleep, and watch TV. Oy vey. Usually, studio apartments at least put the bathroom in a separate room. But, no. They couldn’t be bothered. Let’s hope someone single lives here. Because otherwise, you’ll be showering in front of everyone else in the family.

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You’ll Never Run Out of Cabinet Space

When it comes to kitchen design, storage is always very important. A lot of people have to do their best to organize their kitchen with limited space. But one homeowner has taken their need for cabinets to an extreme. This photo shows an incredible amount of cabinets installed in a relatively small kitchen. In fact, there are so many cabinets that they cover every inch of wall space, leaving no room for anything else. It’s hard to imagine anyone needing this much storage space. If you grew up in a big family, we’re sure you know cabinet space is always needed. But there are probably more visually appealing ways to achieve this.

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Tub Side Seating

This photo shows a kitchen that has been remodeled to include a hot tub, with bar seating installed directly in front of it. The homeowner has decided that the perfect spot for a relaxing soak is right in the middle of their kitchen. And just in case anyone was worried about privacy, the bar seating allows for anyone to watch you bathe. We have no clue what they were thinking. But it’s certainly a conversation starter. There is no telling why anyone might think this is a good idea. The more you stare at it, the more confused you get. Is it a water fountain? That space would have been perfect for a bar. But it just doesn’t make any sense.

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An Entire Town Built Inside of a House

If you’re obsessed with finding weird real estate photos on the Internet like we are, you probably remember seeing miniature towns built in basements. More than one person has done it. One of the most famous examples was a $4 million mansion in Maryland. (Click here to watch the YouTube video.) So this person seems to have taken inspiration from that, because their entire house is designed as if it’s a town. Check out the original Reddit post, because they have multiple photos of this property. It’s such a weird design choice. Although it’s oddly impressive, making an entire town square in your basement is probably not going to help you in the real estate market.

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Poop With a View

According to the Green Gobbler, you’re going to spend an average of 5,767 hours on the toilet over the course of your lifetime. So you might as well enjoy it. This homeowner decided to place the toilet in the middle of the room, directly facing a window. Nowadays, most people pass the time by reading a magazine or looking at their phone. But this homeowner thought it was vital to have the view of nature while they sat on the toilet. It’s weird, to say the least. Hopefully, this window faced the backyard, so at least they had privacy. We wonder what prospective homebuyers thought of the situation.

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This Indoor Golf Course

When you’re rich, you can do anything you want with your house. And that includes installing an indoor golf course in your basement. What’s funny is that they also installed an elevated seating area, which looks like a stage. When you stop to think about it, this probably wasn’t crazy-expensive, because you’re just filling an empty room with astroturf. But this is still a huge waste of space that could be used for something much cooler, like a home movie theater. But if you look closely, you can see the wildly outdated box TV hanging on the wall in the corner. So this person has totally different priorities than us, clearly.

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No Need to Adjust the Screen

At first glance, this photo seems like someone turned the saturation all the way down on Photoshop. When we first saw this, we assumed it was a black and white photo. But, no. This person just decided to turn 50 Shades of Grey into an aesthetic. Over the past couple years, gray floors became very trendy. But unfortunately, the gray theme does not age well. Sure, it’s not a crime to have a splash of gray here and there. But the gray trend is over. This guy doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.

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A Built-In Tripping Hazard

The photo caption says, “This $1 million San Francisco loft has a diagonal support beam that cuts through the middle of the kitchen.” Excuse me? What? Wouldn’t the architects have thought about this in the design process? This was so outrageous, there was an entire Business Insider article about this building. Even the apartment listing mentions the beam, and how you’re guaranteed to trip over it every day of your life. Despite this major flaw, all of the apartments in that building sold. Like we said before, housing in San Francisco is insane. There are very few places in the world where this would be acceptable.

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This Mansion’s Pool Feels Like Something Out of a Tacky Las Vegas Hotel

The caption of this photo on Reddit said, “This is someone’s masterpiece.” That’s true. And it makes us feel guilty for bashing it… But it’s bad. If you want to see more, please look at all of the photos on the original Reddit post. Because we couldn’t fit all of the tackiness into this article. It looks like one of those overly themed Las Vegas Hotels. (If you love looking at hotels like this, we highly recommend watching Safiya Nygaard’s two-part YouTube video on her review of every single hotel in the Las Vegas Strip.) We’re not sure why someone would want their house to look and feel like this 24/7.

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No Curtains Needed

A few photos ago, we showed a picture of someone who had their toilet facing a second story window that faced the backyard. That was already weird. But now take the weirdness level and put it up to 11. Your eyes do not deceive you. This toilet is facing the street for everyone in the world to see. And there are absolutely no curtains for privacy. You can see from the photo that the house is up for sale. The homeowners are probably kicking themselves for doing such a stupid renovation. In 2023, literally anything will sell on the market. But jeez. This is bad.

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Is This Minecraft?

The caption of the photo jokes, “Someone found a great home improvement deal on tile…” If you have ever played the game Minecraft, then this might look familiar. It looks like someone built a castle out of nothing but stone blocks. It’s truly awful. You really need some sort of contrast in a room. Otherwise, it ends up feeling like you’re trapped in a box. This has to go down in history as one of the worst design ideas I’ve ever seen. And if you look at the original Reddit post, there are 4 photos total showing how multiple rooms in the house are completely covered with this tile.

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Indoor Carpeted Pool

Recently, we posted a list of terrible designs that are horrible to clean. There are a lot of carpeted bathrooms that made their way onto that list. And this indoor carpeted pool should be included in the same category. Not only is this carpet getting wet, but it’s also getting covered in chlorine chemicals. It must smell awful in this place. Clearly, whoever did this had a lot of money to spend on their indoor pool. But they had no common sense or good taste. Or, maybe they could afford to hire someone to clean the room frequently enough to where it wasn’t an issue.

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The Booth

Someone posted this photo online with the caption, “Behold, in my own apartment, ‘the booth’. Context: So we toured an apartment that was supposed to be similar to the current one, because the tenants were still in at the time. The floor plan said booth. So we thought maybe like a restaurant booth or something, I don’t know. So a month and a 10 hour drive later, and here we were. I was using this as a desk to work from home. But I recently changed jobs, so now what should I do with it? And has anyone ever seen anything like this?” The top comment is perfect, because there is literally a quote from Seinfeld when Kramer says, “Yeah, I’m getting rid of all my furniture. All of it. And I’m going to build these different levels.” It’s the levels! They did it!

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Too Much Taxidermy

If you look at the original post on Reddit, you’ll see that the photos of this house start off relatively tame. There are a few taxidermy deer heads here and there throughout the house. This is pretty normal for someone who hunts. But then you get to this picture, and see an entire hallway full of taxidermy. This person really must love hunting. If you look closely, you can see that there is even a mountain lion on the left hand side. We can only imagine that this hallway must be terrible to clean. (Especially that pile of antlers hanging out on the floor. Imagine cleaning the dust off of those.)

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This Guy Built a Vintage Video Store in His Basement

It’s rare for people to call out their own home on the Ridiculous Real Estate subreddit. Most of the photos come from people who were scrolling through Zillow and decided to save the most cringe-worthy images. But this photo in particular came from someone who spent 4 years lovingly recreating a 1980’s themed video store in his basement. People loved it. There are some great suggestions in the comment section, like charging money for people to film or take Instagram photos in the video store. Maybe it could even be a museum. If you’re interested to see more, check out the photos on the original Reddit post.

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A Castle With Just 2 Bedrooms But An Entire Walled Parking Lot

Imagine spending the money to build an entire castle for yourself…But it only has 2 bedrooms. Instead of building a large castle, they used the land to build a huge parking lot. The cars are surrounded by a wall that gives them a lot of security and privacy. (But not from drones, who were obviously able to give us aerial photos of the property.) In the comment section, some of the people are actually excited by the dream of living there. They point out that it could be great for an AirBnB or a Renaissance Festival. But it’s located in Southern Indiana. Maybe I’m just ignorant to the wonders of the state that I’m unaware of. But who would pay to stay a lot to stay there if there’s nothing to do in the area?

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Saved By the 90’s

When you decorate a home, it’s smart to avoid trends, simply because trendy things become outdated very quickly. This is a perfect example of that. Every square inch of these photos screams “90’s”. (Check out the original Reddit post to see the full image gallery.) To me, this looks like a scene out of the Rugrats cartoon. Someone was trying to sell the house in this condition. It’s likely that the new owner did renovations to the property, because there are very few people who would live like this in 2023. So these photos are all that remains of this brilliant time capsule.

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Mecca For Moths

Clearly, someone forgot to measure their space before they bought this light fixture. Or maybe they thought they wanted an oversized fixture for some reason. But the result is, like one commenter said, a “Mecca for Moths”. Those bugs must flock to the gigantic light at night time. Maybe they just wanted a larger light because they wanted to illuminate the driveway more at night. If that’s the case, it would have been more effective to buy a spotlight to shine from somewhere like the roof of the house, where you’d get a better angle. Hopefully the new owner won’t mind having Mecca in their incredibly dirty driveway.

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Luxury, or Mold Trap?

You can tell that at the time, they thought this was a good idea. These homeowners must have spent a small fortune redoing this bathroom to their exact taste. We mean, seriously, who builds columns around their bathroom? But the carpet is awful. This isn’t the first time we’ve mentioned carpeted bathrooms (and even pools) on this website. But Lord, are these people stupid. Carpets in bathrooms get wet. And when you combine water and darkness, it creates mold. I hope they have a fan that dries out the room. Otherwise, it will smell damp every time you go into the bathroom. That’s not very luxury at all.

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The Least Favorite Child’s Bedroom

It’s hard to believe that this is an actual bedroom. It seems as though they must have taken a walk-in-closet and converted the space. But the fact that there is a window in the room wouldn’t be common for a closet. So is this somewhere like New York City where it’s notorious for small living spaces? The caption of this photo jokes that they must have given this to the least favorite child in the family. But it’s possible that this was their only option. In the comment section, someone asked an excellent question: How do you change the sheets? You can’t get around the bed. So do you have to slide out the entire mattress in order to accomplish it?

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Funhouse Bathroom Mirrors

These mirrors give the illusion that they go on forever, like a funhouse at a carnival. Why anyone would want this in their bathroom is beyond me. And if you look at the image gallery on the original Reddit post, there are multiple photos showing this house. It doesn’t just stop in the bathroom. They added multiple mirrors to the walls of almost every room. So they must love looking at their own reflection. Maybe somebody just wanted to bring home the experience of the Palace of Versailles home with them.

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So Much Wrong With This Room

There is so much wrong with this room, we don’t know where to start. Let’s go from left to right. On the left hand corner, there is a hearth, but no wood stove. The hearth is already built in a weird way, with a sort of haphazard mix of materials. But what do they think they’re going to do? Build a fire directly on top of the stones? Then you see a tiled sidewalk cutting through the flooring. Why? This walkway isn’t even, either. So it really bothers the perfectionist in me. Then, they added stones to the door frame. And the kitchen has completely different flooring. It’s just so weird.

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Urinal in the “Bitchen”

On our Zillow Gone Wild post, there was someone else who installed urinals in their basement bar, out in the open for the world to see. So it’s actually more common than you’d think. This room is called “The Bitchen”, as the wall decal tells us. It’s half bathroom, half kitchenette. There is not much context in the Reddit post about this place. Just 3 photos of this kitchen with a urinal in it. I’m assuming this is actually the break room at some hip startup that’s trying to be clever. But could it really be in someone’s house?

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Hallway Balconies With Zero View

We have seen this floating around the Internet a few times by now, and it always gives us The Walking Dead vibes. Like these people are living in a prison for safety reasons, and they don’t have the option to go outside. These balconies serve no purpose. You’re not getting fresh air, and you can’t smoke. And the only view you’re getting is your neighbor’s balcony directly across from you. If anything, it’s just an unnecessary safety hazard, especially for people who have kids. You can imagine kids wanting to swing from them, or even try to jump across. It’s bad news, all around.

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What Could Go Wrong?

This is proof that not all rich people are smart. One of the top comments to this post was, “Don’t splash too much, you’ll get the couch wet.” There is also a TV hanging on the wall directly over the water. This feels really risky, considering what happens if you drop a toaster in a bathtub. Couldn’t this potentially be a life-threatening situation waiting to happen? With that being said, I bet the kids who grew up in this house have a lot of fun. They probably invite their friends over all the time and absolutely love it. We wouldn’t be surprised if they were one of the most popular kids in their class.

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This Basement Looks Like a Prison

We have never seen a more frightening basement in my life. The original Reddit post has 10 photos of this house, most of them being pictures of the basement. Turns out that this was an actual prison back in the day. According to the real estate listing, this is the “Historic Meriwether County Jail (1896), just off the town square. Over 10,000 sq ft of history. The 1450 sq ft Sherriff’s residence has been lovingly restored and renovated by the current owner.” Sure, the main house has been restored. But this prison still looks pretty jenky, and they must have left it alone for over 100 years.

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Cement Factory Chic

Before you ask, yes. This is an actual house. Not a prison or museum. The title of this post says, “The newest design trend: Cement Factory Chic. $6 million mansion in rural Idaho, 12,500 sq. ft. of living space (0 finished sq. ft.)”. It includes 13 photos of the property. As you can see from the photo we included in this article, they have surrounded the house with these walls built from stones that are held together by wire. The house itself also has a lot of cement. It really does look like it should be a museum designed by a famous architect.

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How Do You Reach Those Cabinets?

As a short person, it’s difficult to reach the top of normal cabinets, let alone this monstrosity. The caption of this photo says, “Who lives in this house? A giant?” In the original Reddit post, they included 3 photos of this open concept kitchen and living room combo. So not only is it huge vertically, but it’s also just a gigantic space in general. We guess the homeowner wanted to make the most of the vertical space by using it for storage. But it would have been better to just let the ceilings be high without cluttering it with cabinets.

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The Bedroom Without a Wall

We have seen houses with second-story lofts, but nothing like this. It’s just a massive hole in the wall without any sort of safety railing. One of the top captions says, “Who doesn’t want to be able to roll over in bed and go tumbling down into the dining room?” Besides the safety factor, it also eliminates all privacy for the person sleeping in the bed. You wouldn’t want the entire household to be able to see you while you’re asleep. And what happens if the rest of the family wants to stay up late and watch TV, but you want to go to bed?

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The Russian Nesting Doll House

This looks like a house within a house multiple times over. It’s like a Russian nesting doll with smaller dolls inside of one another. Maybe they kept building additions to their home as time went on. There are not any separate entrances. So there is no chance that this is actually a string of row homes. It’s very strange and confusing. But we’re very curious to see what the inside looks like. Do you have to step down to another level? Or is it all level to one another? We need to know!

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A Pool of Blood

This one belongs on our list of Evil Buildings. Only this time, instead of an actual building, this looks like a pool filled with blood. Seriously, why would someone want their pool to look like this? To match the lawn furniture? On top of that, you may have noticed their red tufted couch over to the right. This is definitely screaming evil villain vibes. Who lives here, Cruella DeVille? It also kind of reminds us of the story of Moses, when he turned the river red. Was this a sign that foretold the coming pandemic? We’ll probably never know.

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When You Move From California to Idaho

Sometimes, people are truly out of their element. This is especially true for people who grew up in warmer climates, and never experienced a snowy winter before. The caption of this photo says, “North facing driveway with a 30° slope getting built in Idaho by Californians. Good luck getting in with ice or two feet of snow.” Yikes. That’s really bad. It still snows in parts of Northern California. But if they were from Southern California in places like Los Angeles, this makes a lot of sense. They simply aren’t thinking about the winter time, because they never experienced it.

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AirBnB Inside of a Barn

It seems as though the owners decided to take their room off of AirBnB. (Possibly due to Covid.) But if you want to see more photos of the interior of this house, check out this post. The description from the listing once said, “Built in 1956, Grandpa George’s dairy barn has been the source of countless memories for our family. Over the past several years, we’ve created a space, a literal house-in-a-barn, that displays many of Grandpa’s old farm relics. While adding modern touches that appeal to guests of all ages. The result is a wonderfully unique lodging experience. And located in beautiful Huron County, you’re just moments away from the best beaches, boating, fishing, and farms in the entire state of Michigan!”

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Totally Unusable Garage

It is incredibly common for people to use their garage for storage. According to Home Innovation, 93% of people use their garage for storage space. And 84% of people use it to park their cars. That means somewhere in there, at least 9% of the population has so much stuff in their garage that they can’t fit a car. But this photo is such an extreme version of that. The homeowners have given up on getting their car in completely. We wonder if there was ever a usable driveway here at all, or if some idiot designed it this way from the very beginning.

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The Advent Calendar House

Natural light is important to nearly every homeowner. Having a lot of windows helps keep the house warm in winter, and you can cut back on electricity by not turning on the lights in the daytime. But this house is on another level. Not only are there a lot of windows, but they are random sizes scattered throughout the house. It looks almost like they recycled whatever windows they could find leftover from other construction jobs, just to save money. And if you look closely, you’ll notice that there are also multiple skylights scattered on the rooftop. It must be bright and sunny there nearly every day.

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Podunk Castle

Some people want to live in a grand castle like what we see in fantasy movies. But clearly, not everyone has the budget to do so. This homeowner decided to add stucco towers to the front and back of their house, to make it look more castle-like. But you can see the normal vinyl siding around the original structure of the building. The original Reddit post has 12 photos of this property. Inside of the house, it looks very normal, in comparison to the outside. It’s reminiscent of depressing prison buildings in the middle of nowhere Russia. Who would want a house that looks like this? To each their own…

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So. Many. Shelves

This picture proves that the only difference between a “hoarder” and a “collector” is how rich they happen to be. The original Reddit post has multiple photos of this house. There are gigantic shelves in almost every room. And all of those shelves are filled with antique china and other pieces of art. My mom has a dining room full of curio cabinets, and we always thought her collection was too much. But this person’s house is on another level. It must have cost a fortune to build and fill those cabinets up with that collection. But when they sell the house, what is the next owner going to do with all that space?

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Who Needs Stair Railings?

We know… we gasped too. This is definitely a DIY job, because no builder in their right mind would build stairs without a railing. And it gets worse if you look at all of the photos on the Zillow listing. The exterior sort of looks like a gingerbread cottage. But the rest of the house definitely looks like a serial killer lives there. How could you show a house to potential buyers without being afraid of a lawsuit? Somehow, the home sold for $150,000. We guess the new owners didn’t mind a bit of danger.

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Hey. You Up?

There are tiles in this shower that spell out the words “send nudes”… Which is a rather cheeky choice. On Etsy, there are even a bunch of “send nudes” shower curtain and bath mat designs. So this person is not alone in having the idea, but they just took it to an extreme. I wonder if this was a DIY project, or if they really asked professional tilers to install this into their wall. This might be funny when you’re young and single. But can you imagine leaving this up when you have kids? And then on top of that- trying to sell your house with the tiles still in the shower on the listing photos?

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That’s Not a Mirror

At first glance, you may think that there is a mirror in the back of the shower. That would be weird enough on its own. But, no. This is a very large bathroom with two toilets on either side of the shower. Why would you do this, unless you planned on having two people using the toilets at the same time? It’s so weird, it’s mind-boggling. On top of that, the sinks don’t match. The left mirror is off-center, and not really in a place that makes it easy to see your reflection. Clearly, this was a botch DIY job. If you want to see more photos of this house, check out the Zillow listing.

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Put The Children in the Pit

This photo is so bad, it made us laugh out loud. Someone decided to empty out their indoor pool and turn it into a play pen for children. There is also a fence surrounding this pit, as if the steep slope of the walls of the pool weren’t enough to trap them in already. You can see that they carpeted the bottom of the pool, as well as the steps. And there is a sled in there, which you’d assume the kids use to slide down the slopes of the pool. The rest of the room feels strange, too. What was once an indoor pool has turned into a strange living room or office. Very strange.

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