What is image-aware ranking?
The photographs on a listing are read as a signal in their own right, not just its text. That lets a query like "bright, with a lot of natural light" match listings whose descriptions never use those words, and it decides which photo is shown first.
Two separate things happen with images. The first orders each listing's own gallery so the most relevant photo leads, which is what lets you judge a result without opening it. The second scores how well the images match what you described, which contributes to the ordering of results. Descriptions systematically omit what photographs show — light, condition, layout, how a space actually feels — so a text-only system cannot answer a question about them.