Zillow faces lawsuit over ‘Zestimate’ tool that calculates a house’s worth • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by BeetleB » Fri, May 12, 2017, 3:53 AM UTC

flubert wrote: post #250

BeetleB wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You think estimating the value of every home in the country within 10% is bad? It may be good from an "interesting problem" standpoint. But if your house's Zestimate at $300K, 10% means it's real value is somewhere between $273K and $334K. Not very helpful, is it?

Does anyone have a source of data for the variance of the home prices in the U.S.? Getting within 10% sounds spectacular, considering that I think you could get close to 10% price differences between different combinations of buyers and sellers on the exact same property. If someone were to come up with an algorithm for predicting the price of a steak dinner at a restaurant, using spotty 5 year old data, I think ever…

>If someone were to come up with an algorithm for predicting the price of a steak dinner at a restaurant, using spotty 5 year old data, I think everyone would be impressed at getting it correct within $3 of $30.

As I said, as an academic exercise it's great. But we're not discussing whether Zillow deserves goodie points. The question is: Is this Zestimate useful for anyone?

From a buyer's or seller's POV, 10% is too high an error. Sure, if your house is only $100K, $10K off is not much. If your house is $300K, you're not likely going to get far by underbidding with $270K, and the seller will be deemed too optimistic for asking $330K (although with bidding wars, it occasionally does happen).

For either the buyer or the seller, being told the price could be between $270-330K is virtually useless in deciding what to buy/sell for. It's just too much variance.

With high numbers, absolute amounts matter more than relative percentage.

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

#262

Post by SolarNet » Fri, May 12, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #243

scott00 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Procuring an estimate produced by an automated valuation model is not quite the same thing as procuring an automated valuation model.

Exactly. It doesn't really make sense to talk about procurement of an automated valuation model, but that is what the statute seems to say.

It does because in this sense the model is the result of the automated valuation. You are thinking too much like a programmer when you think the automated valuation model is the model being procured.

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

#263

Post by michaelmrose » Fri, May 12, 2017, 6:08 AM UTC

mfringel wrote: post #235

michaelmrose wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zillow is a information company providing a free ballpark estimate of a vast array of properties, not a real estate company. This is an important distinction. Neither party is paying them for an accurate estimate ergo they are not obligated to provide an estimate sufficient for either buyer or seller, which is why both sides are best advised to PAY for an accurate estimate before closing a transactions worth hundreds…

...and Uber is just a software company, and Mastercard/Visa just facilitate payments. The specific classification of a company is irrelevant. If they've induced their own gravitational field, then they're responsible for the consequences.

Assessors are obligated to be qualified because they are obligated to their clients who pay them money in exchange for their services.

How much did the seller in question pay zillow and what was promised in return?

The fact that person a's action foo can negatively effect you doesn't imply that the law or ethics precludes a from doing foo. A must be either violating your rights, the law, or have a duty to you that would preclude foo.

Its not clear how you could have a right to silence others speech in order to earn more money, its not clear what duty zillow has to sellers, and its not clear that the law actually precludes zillow from underestimating the value of your property.

In fact it looks an awful lot like none of those apply, and further that allowing anyone who feels like their property is undervalued to use threat of a lawsuit to silence discussion would preclude anyone from providing public analysis of property values whether accurate or not and thus harm the public at large. Real harm unlike the unproven harm previously discussed.

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

#264

Post by gnaritas » Fri, May 12, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

razwall wrote: post #172

gnaritas wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you are driving down the street and say to your spouse, "Look at that house, it's gotta be worth a million bucks," you just committed a misdemeanor. No, but if you try and sell your opinion to make money that's when you're very likely crossing the line. An appraisal is something you pay for or make money from; opinions are not.

That might be your opinion of what the law should be, and I wouldn't disagree with that opinion, but it's not what the law says.

Unfortunately, what the law is is generally determined by more than the text of the law, but the law plus previous precedence so it's never enough to just look at the text of the law.

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

#265

Post by flubert » Thu, May 25, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #261

flubert wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have a source of data for the variance of the home prices in the U.S.? Getting within 10% sounds spectacular, considering that I think you could get close to 10% price differences between different combinations of buyers and sellers on the exact same property. If someone were to come up with an algorithm for predicting the price of a steak dinner at a restaurant, using spotty 5 year old data, I think ever…

>If someone were to come up with an algorithm for predicting the price of a steak dinner at a restaurant, using spotty 5 year old data, I think everyone would be impressed at getting it correct within $3 of $30. As I said, as an academic exercise it's great. But we're not discussing whether Zillow deserves goodie points. The question is: Is this Zestimate useful for anyone? From a buyer's or seller's POV, 10% is too…

'Zillow hears your ‘Zestimate’ complaints: it’s offering a $1 million prize for a better algorithm'

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/homeowners-hate-zestimates-...