patrick.net

If only it were true.

Price is what someone is willing to pay, not what zillow says.

Zillow plants a value in the buyers head though... So it is psychologically very important when you put your home for sale. 100% of buyers will Zillow the home they are purchasing before they put in an offer. Do you really think the Zillow Z-estimate has no effect on that potential buyers offer?

I have seen the value all over the place, when I was looking. In some places it was way over market and in other neighborhoods-way under. I found the trulia estimate to be far closer to the market value.

BoomAndBustCycle says

Zillow plants a value in the buyers head though... So it is psychologically very important when you put your home for sale. 100% of buyers will Zillow the home they are purchasing before they put in an offer. Do you really think the Zillow Z-estimate has no effect on that potential buyers offer?

Not if they have any sense. Zillow estimates are frequently well off the mark.

Every time I mention Zillow to a realtor's face , it seems to want to throw up immediately.

Guess Zillow must be doing something right ......

A year ago our Zestimate seemed way off. Now it seems right on, and that's figuring in recent sales of extremely comparable properties. I have no idea what they are doing, or how it works, but even a broken clock . . .

Zillow also makes it really easy to pull up a list of comps in seconds... You can run a very accurate appraisal in the house in minutes and compare that number to the zestimate. Sure individual zestimates have their faults... But it's light years better than what the consumer had access to pre-zillow.

BoomAndBustCycle says

But it's light years better than what the consumer had access to pre-zillow.

I guess it's relative. Zillow had my home estimated (zestimated) at $170K, a professional estimate came in at $155K. Since I'd bought the house for $118K I was fine, but yeah, I'd expected/hoped for more since the zestimate.

Zillow has said that my house is worth $207k-$227k for over six months. And each time I look at it, Zillow still claims a $7k or more loss in the past 30 days. If that were true, my house would be worth around 150k by now - but it still shows that same $207k.

Why do people even pay attention to "Zestimates"?

Is it really that hard to go to Redfin, enter zip, sq ft, and bed/bath parameters, select "sold" and find actual comps?

Or are people really delusional enough to follow "book value"?

Call it Crazy says

What if Redfin doesn't cover your area?

Just guess. It's more accurate.

Zillow "zestimates" my rental property near Palm Springs at probably $150k more than it's worth, while it estimates the value of my buddy's rental property in Oceanside at around 80-90k under its real value. I'd really like to know their formula. Looking at the comps, it leaves me scratching my head on how they come up with these values.

Zillow changes their "history" and "zestimates" quite radically at times. Very surprising to see such totally different valuations with no reason. sometimes it's a 50 to $70,000 jump on a $190,000 valuation. Doesn't give much confidence to their zestimates but I find myself using them quite often anyway. Redfin is not in my area and Trulia didn't have a price on my house when I just looked it up, but they did have general info and public records. Zillow is still much better than nothing.

Nobody knows what real estate is really worth, because of the rampant valuation fraud by agents and appraisers.

Rodman says

Zillow changes their "history" and "zestimates" quite radically at times

Yes. My house's historical Zestimate is different now than it was 5 years ago. It's one thing to change the algo over time and have the zestimate change. It's another to claim that the zestimate was $1m in 2009, when in 2009 it showed $800k. The comps are useful, and there's other interesting info. But the zestimate is not really reliable.

I used to wonder what the heck was up with the "zillow" name, and then I found the answer while reading a Dr. Seuss book to my kids.
"...and a Zillow on your pillow."

Daves not here says

My appraisal just came in for my refi application. They set it at 800k for Freddie Mac. Zillow showed it going up to 864k by last Feb 2014 from increases that came fast in 2013, Then, when Trulia merged, the values changed drastically and fast up and down. Went from high of 916k, down to 882k, up to 903k, down to 852k last week. Others in my same division changed even greater - like one went to 885k now down to 625k - make my head spin in the last month. Their chart erased some of these changes - like it never happened -wtf? I wondered if this was to set up their new future estimates to better match a crashed market - real or imagined? Twilight zone? Are the paid appraisers secretly observing?

Look at sold prices in your neighborhood from the past three months. That will tell you what you need to know, not Zestimates.