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Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

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Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#21

Post by droopyEyelids »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
cavanasm wrote: post #5

I wonder how many other tech companies fit into this general category of "providing an equivalent to a regulated service without meeting the regulations". You've got the more obvious "sharing economy" type things which are in the news all over the place lately, but I bet there are a bunch of other companies like Zillow that have been flying under the radar for a while.

If a homeowner or homebuyer is paying someone to assess the value of a property, requiring expertise and training in inspection of a house such as materials, build quality, plumbing and whatnot, I could understand needing government approval. This is just someone saying what they they think something is worth. Do I need a license before I can say "I think a certain car is only worth $25k instead of $30k"?

Yeah- also what if you make up a brand new word to ensure people see it's not an estimate. A Pulpstimate or something.

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#22

Post by JustSomeNobody »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
cavanasm wrote: post #5

I wonder how many other tech companies fit into this general category of "providing an equivalent to a regulated service without meeting the regulations". You've got the more obvious "sharing economy" type things which are in the news all over the place lately, but I bet there are a bunch of other companies like Zillow that have been flying under the radar for a while.

If a homeowner or homebuyer is paying someone to assess the value of a property, requiring expertise and training in inspection of a house such as materials, build quality, plumbing and whatnot, I could understand needing government approval. This is just someone saying what they they think something is worth. Do I need a license before I can say "I think a certain car is only worth $25k instead of $30k"?

This isn't the same thing. This would be you putting up a web site that tracks cars and the ones for sale you'd say how much you think it's worth. Do it once, you're just a guy (or gal) saying something. Do it all the time and you become somewhat of an authority figure. That's the difference.

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#23

Post by MichaelBurge »

This is as ridiculous as suing Nolo for publishing law books without a license.

The only reason why the government needs to have an appraisal license at all is because the government handles the loan for the house. The goal is to mitigate the risk to the government, not to help consumers decide how much they want to pay.

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#25

Post by mattkrause »

_m8fo wrote: post #16

You would think real estate would prove to be one of the few real life fields where machine learning would be able to predict the prices pretty accurately. You have: 1. List price 2. "Favorites" on the MLS. 3. Square footage 4. Bedrooms 5. Bathrooms 6. Sold price for nearby properties 7. Sold price for nearby properties relative to their list price And the list goes on... Is it that difficult to predict? Literally th…

If you want to try it, there are a few data sets kicking around, including

a) https://www.kaggle.com/c/house-prices-advanced-regression-te...

b) http://www.bis.org/statistics/pp_detailed.htm

c) https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/housing

If you had a really great model, you might be able to make some money with it--find underpriced (per the model) houses, buy them, and then try to sell them at the model's price.

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#26

Post by JustSomeNobody »

JBReefer wrote: post #14
jdavis703 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is providing a housing estimate a regulated activity?

This is a lawyer, who can sue people at very low cost compared to the rest of us. If this is a regulated activity, it absolutely shouldn't be. This reminds me of the absurd barber regulations.

Surely most regulations are in place because someone at some point in time tried to take advantage of someone, yes?

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#27

Post by lotsofpulp »

geppeto wrote: post #15
lotsofpulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not correct, then the sale price will reflect that and Zillow's reputation will take a hit. Don't understand why the government needs to get involved in what someone says something is worth, it's their opinion and they're entitled to it. Edit: It would be funny if Zillow also started putting up alerts about problems with government finances which will likely impact future taxes, such as in Illinois.

The government's not getting involved, oh you mean the fact that a judge is going to be involved? Civil courts exist to provide monetary damages if damages can be proved to exist. Yes, they can also compel arbitrary behavior as a part of governing body. This is independent of any stance on Zillow and a state licensing regime. If the plaintiff can convince that the tool is making her lose money, the judge will award h…

You're right, I shouldn't have phrased it that way. I meant to say I don't think the government should be involved.

Although, I'm not sure why the plaintiff should be awarded anything, even if Zillow causes her to "lose money". Unless Zillow is doing something specifically to her home estimate, then it's merely offering a differing opinion on what they think the home is worth.

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#28

Post by [deleted] »

geppeto wrote: post #15
lotsofpulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not correct, then the sale price will reflect that and Zillow's reputation will take a hit. Don't understand why the government needs to get involved in what someone says something is worth, it's their opinion and they're entitled to it. Edit: It would be funny if Zillow also started putting up alerts about problems with government finances which will likely impact future taxes, such as in Illinois.

The government's not getting involved, oh you mean the fact that a judge is going to be involved? Civil courts exist to provide monetary damages if damages can be proved to exist. Yes, they can also compel arbitrary behavior as a part of governing body. This is independent of any stance on Zillow and a state licensing regime. If the plaintiff can convince that the tool is making her lose money, the judge will award h…

[deleted]

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#29

Post by ghaff »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
cavanasm wrote: post #5

I wonder how many other tech companies fit into this general category of "providing an equivalent to a regulated service without meeting the regulations". You've got the more obvious "sharing economy" type things which are in the news all over the place lately, but I bet there are a bunch of other companies like Zillow that have been flying under the radar for a while.

If a homeowner or homebuyer is paying someone to assess the value of a property, requiring expertise and training in inspection of a house such as materials, build quality, plumbing and whatnot, I could understand needing government approval. This is just someone saying what they they think something is worth. Do I need a license before I can say "I think a certain car is only worth $25k instead of $30k"?

I think you're assuming way more thoroughness in the typical assessment of a property than is warranted by the practices. At least with respect to real estate taxes, in my experience assessments are pretty mechanical with respect to square footage and standard house features (number of bathrooms, etc.)

Assessments are different from inspections.

I don't really disagree with you though. There would seem to be a difference between someone being directly paid to assess something, perhaps largely based on standard formulas and practices and a web company providing housing estimates with no contractual relationship.

Re: Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

IanDrake wrote: post #20
lotsofpulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not correct, then the sale price will reflect that and Zillow's reputation will take a hit. Don't understand why the government needs to get involved in what someone says something is worth, it's their opinion and they're entitled to it. Edit: It would be funny if Zillow also started putting up alerts about problems with government finances which will likely impact future taxes, such as in Illinois.

It seems to be a civil matter so far. The problem is, you'll never get to establish a sale price if the seller thinks his house is worth 100k over market or a buyer thinks the seller is asking 100k over market because that's what they saw on Zillow. Further, when zillow gets the estimate of a house wrong it costs them nothing, but there are real costs to Zillow's bad estimates to buyers and sellers.

> It seems to be a civil matter so far.

A "civil matter" is where the courts—a part of government—apply law—created by government—to non-crimes disputes, often (as in this case) between private parties.

It absolutely does not indicate the absence of government involvement, even if the government isn't a party to the litigation.

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