141–150 of 208 posts
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"$31k. Zillow has it at $400,000." Drop a 0 there? It seems likely that $31k would go beyond lucky into probable theft....
It was an investment property that needed some work. He had to put about $10k into it, but it's good to go now.
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In most markets comparables are acquired through an MLS database, and access to MLS is usually not free. You can hire or become friends with a real estate professional that pays for access to MLS (or become one yourself). But before sites like Zillow, there wasn't anything like it easily available to the average person.
Or they can be acquired via county assessor data, for free, from the court house. From the county assessor, you'll get sold price, deed type, beds/baths, and high level sundry information.
Looking at other houses in the area, my house appears to have a much higher perceived vs actual value, based on Zillow estimates alone. For example, my neighbor's house on Zillow is supposedly worth $90k, but I'd put it closer to $100k based on her lot size, house size, overall condition, and age of the house (I'm friendly with my neighbor so I know a little about her property's history and makeup). In other words, her Zestimate is a bit lower than what a reasonable person would put it at, whereas mine seems greatly inflated. Perhaps this is due to Zillow "grading on a curve"; it would seem odd if one house was rated at half the value of its neighbors, so mine gets brought up to the lower end of the average range even though it doesn't deserve it. That's purely speculation on my part though.
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Or they can be acquired via county assessor data, for free, from the court house. From the county assessor, you'll get sold price, deed type, beds/baths, and high level sundry information.
This works for historical data analysis, but falls over flat for trying to ascertain asset prices in markets, due to how much more quickly the MLS data is updated compared to public records (although, to Redfin's credit, they provide both the MLS record and public record for property events for completeness). Some properties are only on the market for hours/days; you'd never have a chance as a market participant if y…
SF Bay area, I've had 3 formal house assessments, & each time they "start with" Zillow et al to look at "reasonable values in the neighborhood". Which seriously affects your ability to refi, etc. So Yeah Zillow has an effect. It's worth it to create a login & enter in your upgrades, so your ZESTIMATE goes up.
It's worth it to create a login & enter in your upgrades, so your ZESTIMATE goes up. Very nice, thank you, my Zillow estimate is now $5965 higher. We have no intention to sell but if we do, at least I can start the negotiations at a higher price point by pointing to Zillow.
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Amazing that people still pay for that.
"People" don't. It's a required part of the due diligence to get a mortgage. No appraisal, no loan. For the most part, the banks and brokers re-sell those loans immediately, so they don't stay on their books. All they need to protect them from lawsuits later is proof that they followed the process to the letter -- which involves getting a written appraisal. No mortgage broker or Realtor ever got rich by picking a fig…
I looked my house up on Zillow and it is showing an estimate of about $80k. My homeowner's insurance has it covered up to $75k, the county tax assessor lists the FMV as about $50k, and I owe $37k on it. My own estimate is about the same as the tax assessor's, and I wouldn't ask more than $50k when it comes time to sell it, given the work it needs to get it up to the Zillow estimate in my eyes. Looking at other houses…
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Unless you think they should never update their algorithm, approach (2) is just making the chart consistent with itself. The useful part of these charts isn't really the current Zestimate, but rather the trend line of the home values, especially at the neighborhood level. If you don't recalculate the historical values, then you break the ability to see the trend line. If you really want to see the results of previous…
Every county in the US that publishes historical valuations seem to get by without overwriting history.
I bought a home last year, and each realtor I talked to brought up how terrible Zillow was before I ever mentioned it. If you look at the WaPo article all the comments are by other realtors, so I'd take those comments with a grain of salt. Oddly, my mortgage guy never looked at Zillow (that I saw) for figuring out values, so shrug . I'm sure the data is inaccurate, but it's somewhere to start the conversation and let…
My bro-in-law became a real estate agent a couple years ago. Recently we were discussing Zillow, and he went into a tirade about how terrible it is. I just mentioned that it's a good tool to gauge the price trends of my neighborhood, but he began countering with canned, carefully scripted responses that sounded like indoctrination from his broker/employer. I just sighed, before the topic turned to how important it is…
According to Zillow, 90% of the houses in one region were overpriced and selling like hotcakes. And 90% of houses in another region were underpriced but staying on the market.
I think most of the value is not an absolute measure, but as a relative one. I can compare Zestimates to each other in the same city with fair accuracy.