Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Zillow has been all over the place regarding the value of our home.
The values are also very inconsistent. If you look at the graph of what the value of a house is from past years and look at it again 6 months later, the graph will be completely different. At one point the graph said my house was worth 560k, now the graph peak is 515k. If you going to be wrong with the value, at least be consistently wrong, instead of updating all of the past values based on current sales/prices today.
Zillow also does a poor job valuing houses. Often 5 bedroom house next to toxic waste site and busy freeway is worth more than a 4 bedroom on a nice quite street in the same zip code. They also don't take into account the room size, those 5 bedrooms could be tiny, the 4 bedroom house could be much larger bedrooms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28
Zillow is probably nice if your house is IDENTICAL to every other house within a 1/2 mile radius. Where our house was, it sat on several acres and was 1800 sq ft ranch. The other houses it comped within 1/2 mile were smaller (1200 sq ft) and 40 X 80 lots. Zillow priced our house at the same rate as all the smaller houses based on 6 sales and averaging the sold price??
Agreed. There is a 4 bedroom house on a tiny lot that has a major freeway across the street, it's was worth more than my 4 bedroom house, which is on 2 1/2 acres of property, in the woods near farms at one point. Both houses are in the same town/zip code.
Last edited by TechGromit; 03-15-2012 at 07:19 AM..
have used the zestimate to proceed with refi under harp 2. badly under water. said what the heck, do an appraisal which came out significantly higher than the zestimate. so i qualify for harp 1. wish i had not relied on zillow and had proceeded to refi sooner. but lesson learned.
realestate.com, trulia seem more accurate for automated tools for home value estimates.
guess zillow is a good means to look at neighborhood listings and sales.
So Zillow is not only irrelevant but fundamentally flawed as well, so that the valuations are meaningless
Quote:
Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28
Zillow is probably nice if your house is IDENTICAL to every other house within a 1/2 mile radius. Where our house was, it sat on several acres and was 1800 sq ft ranch. The other houses it comped within 1/2 mile were smaller (1200 sq ft) and 40 X 80 lots. Zillow priced our house at the same rate as all the smaller houses based on 6 sales and averaging the sold price??
realestate.com, trulia seem more accurate for automated tools for home value estimates.
Yes that is my experience as well. You may find the Chase AVM site useful too. So what is it about Zillow that they get it so wrong when other sites are so much more accurate?
Zillow is probably nice if your house is IDENTICAL to every other house within a 1/2 mile radius. Where our house was, it sat on several acres and was 1800 sq ft ranch. The other houses it comped within 1/2 mile were smaller (1200 sq ft) and 40 X 80 lots. Zillow priced our house at the same rate as all the smaller houses based on 6 sales and averaging the sold price??
The "zestimates" aren't even close when houses are identical! For example, 2 identical townhouses in my community (both brand new with the same high end finishes) and one had a zestimate of 380K and one was 495K. Both sold last month for exactly the same price....515K. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for such differences. Just Zillow being Zillow.
Maybe in different parts of the country Chase has better data, but for me (in suburban Chicago) that Chase link is just as bad (maybe worse) than Zillow. It literally has one of the oldest, smallest homes of my neighbor listed at value that even in the most optimistic point in the bubble would have been a stretch and the data is so "unfresh" that a few doors the other way, there is a huge home on a giant lot with EVERYTHING done "top of the line" valued at LESS than what the lot sold to builder for at tear down several years ago.
I guess that what happens when they put their "hedge of our outstanding loans" guy in charge in this little project, $2B loss and all...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Surbiton
Yes that is my experience as well. You may find the Chase AVM site useful too. So what is it about Zillow that they get it so wrong when other sites are so much more accurate?
Perhaps instead of "is it irrelevant" the question ought to be "how can more people be educated as to the horror of Zillow"...
I do think an awful lot of people try to rely on Zillow's poor estimates to either purchase or refi homes and doing so will only lead them in the wrong direction.
Zillow is not irrelevant to me - I found the house we're under contract for on Zillow's "make me move" feature ... it was not listed anywhere else, not the MLS, no FSBO sign in the yard - only this little listing on Zillow. I never would have known about it otherwise so I'm Zillow's newest biggest fan!
Zillow has my house completely wrong from the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, to its actual value and also the same for the neighbors. I think it may go off of the last sale price and add about $20,000, which it is worth alot more than that, we actually recently found out. Thankfully. Much less than five years ago, but still more than we were thinking. I have checked alot of my family's homes on there as well and the same thing happens. I am not sure where they get their info rom, but its certainly not from the house listing itself.
ETA: that Chase site has my home info incorrect as well. I have a 4 bed, 2.5 bath and both that and Zillow have it as a 3bed, 1 bath and it is also off on the size by 200 sq ft. Though the Chase site has the home value alot closer to market
Last edited by Flamingomo; 05-23-2012 at 12:09 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No better...
