31–40 of 265 posts
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.
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.
Interesting. I wonder what would her argument be if Zillow simply reported the City/County tax assessors estimates which are usually even lower than Zillow's.
The realtors I talk to hate the Zillow estimate as it typically creates an unrealistic expectation for either the seller or buyer depending on if the algorithm over or under estimates. Apparently it's rarely correct, though I live in a unique area.
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.
Perhaps with that buyer and seller. I believe, though, that Zillow rewrites historical estimates when they get new data. So you can't really see how wrong they were after a sale.
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…
Note you have two problems: 1 - features that you can't observe (sentiment / how much someone likes the house or area); 2 - features that are too expensive to observe
Have a view of the ocean? In CA, that can be worth another $X00k or maybe even millions. Have ocean view rights, ie nobody can build between you and ocean? Even more. The neighboring property with a blocked view can be worth far less. That's going to be really hard to observe at scale.
Does the backyard, if any, get full sun? What is the soil like?
Have reasonable suspicions there's asbestos in the building, even if not formally acknowledged, and a $50k+ remediate would be required?
How much sunlight does it get, and from what side?
How old is the interior woodworking and how well has it been cared for?
How good is the internal soundproofing?
How much renovation is required? Do you still have knob & tube?
Even silly things like how good is the cell service. Which can vary just by moving 30 feet.
How good is the water pressure and how much $$ would it cost to upgrade it.
etc etc
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since when is providing a housing estimate a regulated activity?
This is from the article: "...the fact that they offer market-value estimates and 'are promoted as a tool for potential buyers to use in assessing [the] market value of a given property,' shows that they meet the definition of an appraisal under state law. Not only should Zillow be licensed to perform appraisals before offering such estimates" It can be surprising when seemingly innocuous activities are in fact heavi…
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…
You'd need a few other things:
8. Floor count
9. Size and location of the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen
10. In-unit laundry (mostly for condos)
11. Proximity to neighbors
12. Existing tree coverage and other landscaping
13. Proximity to trails, transit, and other mostly-fixed landmarks
... I'm sure I'm missing many more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I can have a website where I give financial advice. If I set up a business to give individual advice I may need some sort of certification.
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.
There are so many sources of info for house value that I don't see how Zillow could single handedly be manipulating a house's sale price. If it's not selling for what the homeowner thinks it's worth, it's probably not worth that much.