61–70 of 93 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They even know unlisted data, like which buyers are currently looking. If they combine it with data from social network partners and other providers they can know the school-friend networks of the buyer's kids, church affiliations, how racist they are, etc.
Social networks don't sell data like that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's not forget there's a standard 6% commission in US real estate transactions I never really understood this, the last time I sold a house in the UK the fee was 1.5% and only on my side, the buyer pays nothing.
Did you know that "realtor" is a registered trademark?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They even know unlisted data, like which buyers are currently looking. If they combine it with data from social network partners and other providers they can know the school-friend networks of the buyer's kids, church affiliations, how racist they are, etc.
Social networks don't sell data like that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They even know unlisted data, like which buyers are currently looking. If they combine it with data from social network partners and other providers they can know the school-friend networks of the buyer's kids, church affiliations, how racist they are, etc.
Social networks don't sell data like that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What specific details would they have that other's don't. I don't know how prevalent FSBO is on Zillow in some markets, but in mine it's extremely limited. I'd be shocked if it made up 5% of the residential market, probably closer to 1%. The rest of the listings are from MLS systems and they pull housing data from county systems. For that, I'd assume there is a data broker and Zillow isn't integrating with thousands…
What's FSOB? Was it just a typo of FSBO (as in for sale by owner)?
How can zestimate be trusted if zillow is in the business of buying and selling homes? There's a reason why banks separate advisory business from the trading business.
It's already pretty inaccurate today (overestimates by about 10%[0]), so there's not much change there. ;-) [0]: Very rough estimate, may be market-specific.
That being said, I wouldn't say 10% is a super high overestimation. On my street are two identical houses and one sold for $150k while the other sold for $180k, even though they're literally identical other than the color of the siding.
The number that really matters is the appraised value. Zillow had my house at $110k when I bought it and the buyers were asking $140k. It was a surprise when the appraisal came back at $145k. If Zillow was right, the bank would never have given a loan for $30k over the value of the house. But there was no way for Zillow to know the amount of work the previous owners put into the interior of the house.
Zillow is not to be trusted they have power to manipulate the market prices with their zestimate. Not only that but they're ridiculous leads pricing they charge the agents ($250 for every time you fill out the contact me).
Zillow is not to be trusted they have power to manipulate the market prices with their zestimate. Not only that but they're ridiculous leads pricing they charge the agents ($250 for every time you fill out the contact me).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect part of the reason is that SV "unicorn" Opendoor ( https://www.opendoor.com/ ) is doing this and it wants a piece of the pie. Question I have is if whatever "pie" Opendoor is grabbing is actually sustainable in a recession/down market...seems like the worse case scenario is that they are left holding a bunch of illiquid inventory of declining value they can't get rid of.
The risk is in sitting on a lot of properties and getting overextended during a downturn. I think that can be mitigated because Zillow/Opendoor's model is not to buy and hold, but to: 1. buy at a discount (essentially a fee for the service of selling your house with a click) 2. sell at a markup (we're talking a small one in most cases, but the fact is in a good market you can reliably print small amounts of money wit…
We are very far along in the current economic cycle, and a downturn is inevitable. It would be unwise to be sitting on a large real estate portfolio you can’t quickly unload when that occurs.
Will be interesting to see if this Hail Mary pays off.