Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 265 posts

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

#151

Post by vageli »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #21
lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

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"?

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

Or Zestimate, even.

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

#152

Post by jlarocco »

colordrops wrote: post #67
strictnein wrote: post #19

The Zillow estimate used to be spot on in our neighborhood, for several years even. Recently they all plunged to 10-20% below market value, even though all sales data puts it at the previous mark. The weird thing is that they also went back and recalculated old "Zestimate" data as well. On April 2nd the estimate for our house was $617,453, which is more or less what it would sell for. It had been above $600k since Ju…

I live in a hot real estate market (L.A.), and I've spent about 5 minutes (no exaggeration) looking online at the prices of houses in my neighborhood, knowing the actual closing price of recent sales, and my first thought was that prices were about 10-20% below market value. It's funny that this is obvious to someone like myself who has spent virtually no time dealing with real estate, let alone people heavily entren…

> It's funny that this is obvious to someone like myself who has spent virtually no time dealing with real estate, let alone people heavily entrenched in the process.

I think you're completely missing the point of the tool and the last sentence in OP's post... They're getting it wrong on purpose to get signups.

I really like the Zestimate tool (if it's accurate), but it's pretty sleazy for them to use it this way. Most people won't research the market price for every house they see, and as long as the Zestimate is reasonable, they'll assume the sales price is too high.

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

#153

Post by skwirl »

leftandright wrote: post #120
BeetleB wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. County assessors for tax purposes are explicitly not trying to determine market price. Zillow should ignore it.

I'm not sure what you mean. In Illinois (the state from the article) the assessor is calculating the market value: Most real property in Illinois must be assessed based on its value on the open market, or its “market value.” This value is the amount at which a property would sell in a competitive and open market... [1] [1] http://tax.illinois.gov/Publications/LocalGovernment/PTAX100...

That's not how it worked where I grew up in Upstate New York. The assessed value was a number way below market value, but assessed values among different houses pretty much differ by the same proportions as the actual market values. I do not know why it is the case.

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

#154

Post by surfmike »

strictnein wrote: post #19

The Zillow estimate used to be spot on in our neighborhood, for several years even. Recently they all plunged to 10-20% below market value, even though all sales data puts it at the previous mark. The weird thing is that they also went back and recalculated old "Zestimate" data as well. On April 2nd the estimate for our house was $617,453, which is more or less what it would sell for. It had been above $600k since Ju…

The recalculating of the old Zestimate value is what really infuriates me.

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

#156

Post by Twirrim »

strictnein wrote: post #19

The Zillow estimate used to be spot on in our neighborhood, for several years even. Recently they all plunged to 10-20% below market value, even though all sales data puts it at the previous mark. The weird thing is that they also went back and recalculated old "Zestimate" data as well. On April 2nd the estimate for our house was $617,453, which is more or less what it would sell for. It had been above $600k since Ju…

It has been at least $100k way too high in our neighbourhood for well over a year. I'm not sure quite how they go so far off, there has been a slow but steady rate of house sales around to set their data from. Consistently the Zestimate has been noticeably over the market value, and it has been annoying sellers.

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

#157

Post by chasing »

razwall wrote: post #149
jcranmer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illinois is a common-law jursidiction. Any judge would laugh you out of court if you claimed an off-hand comment on valuation was an appraisal.

I agree. So where is the line between an "off-hand comment" that's not subject to the law, and an appraisal that constitutes a misdemeanor? Is it illegal if you post your comment on Facebook? Or on your blog where you talk about various homes for sale in your neighborhood? Or only when you start charging people money to hear your opinion? A citizen cannot look at the law and figure out if they're committing a crime,…

I imagine if you offer your opinion about the price in a professional context where your opinion can affect the actual value of the property then you might have to follow some rules.

If you drive by a house and say "this house doesn't look like it's worth shit" you're probably not going to wind up in court after someone complains that said house is worth quite a bit more than shit and you're driving the price down.

Laws actually can be vague while remaining Constitutional. Sometimes it's unavoidable. Court cases can be used to refine the edges.

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

#158

Post by CPLX »

razwall wrote: post #149
jcranmer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illinois is a common-law jursidiction. Any judge would laugh you out of court if you claimed an off-hand comment on valuation was an appraisal.

I agree. So where is the line between an "off-hand comment" that's not subject to the law, and an appraisal that constitutes a misdemeanor? Is it illegal if you post your comment on Facebook? Or on your blog where you talk about various homes for sale in your neighborhood? Or only when you start charging people money to hear your opinion? A citizen cannot look at the law and figure out if they're committing a crime,…

The line is almost certainly when you start using the estimate in the context of conducting commerce, which is a pretty straightforward and understandable distinction.

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

#159

Post by razwall »

chasing wrote: post #157
razwall wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. So where is the line between an "off-hand comment" that's not subject to the law, and an appraisal that constitutes a misdemeanor? Is it illegal if you post your comment on Facebook? Or on your blog where you talk about various homes for sale in your neighborhood? Or only when you start charging people money to hear your opinion? A citizen cannot look at the law and figure out if they're committing a crime,…

I imagine if you offer your opinion about the price in a professional context where your opinion can affect the actual value of the property then you might have to follow some rules. If you drive by a house and say "this house doesn't look like it's worth shit" you're probably not going to wind up in court after someone complains that said house is worth quite a bit more than shit and you're driving the price down. L…

Actually this has come up before with a similar law in Arizona, where the state tried to ban Zestimates. Volokh's analysis basically agreed with me (http://volokh.com/posts/1177792494.shtml). Though I couldn't find any info about what ultimately happened with that case.

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

#160

Post by colordrops »

jlarocco wrote: post #152
colordrops wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a hot real estate market (L.A.), and I've spent about 5 minutes (no exaggeration) looking online at the prices of houses in my neighborhood, knowing the actual closing price of recent sales, and my first thought was that prices were about 10-20% below market value. It's funny that this is obvious to someone like myself who has spent virtually no time dealing with real estate, let alone people heavily entren…

> It's funny that this is obvious to someone like myself who has spent virtually no time dealing with real estate, let alone people heavily entrenched in the process. I think you're completely missing the point of the tool and the last sentence in OP's post... They're getting it wrong on purpose to get signups. I really like the Zestimate tool (if it's accurate), but it's pretty sleazy for them to use it this way. Mo…

> They're getting it wrong on purpose to get signups.

No, that is my point. Well, and also that they are pretty dumb for making it so obvious.

Post reply on HN