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.
How did this evolve from Cameras & Returning Inquiries ??
Well, the original post wasn't actually about camera's. It was a thinly veiled complaint that the homes didn't look as nice in person as in photos and the agents were fluffing the remarks. The second part was about the agents not returning calls which stems from all those 3rd party websites which is where we ended up. But yes, it's rare a post stays on topic.
I wont claim to have any knowledge of other states real estate trends...All of my experience is in Texas, and even that experience is isolated to Houston and two small rural areas....I admittedly operate in a real-estate bubble...but its a big bubble.
Zillow is widely known here in Texas to be terrible b/c we are a non-disclosure state. Out of state people may not know that, so I reckon they may not be dumb for not understanding that the values shown in Texas are terrible. But if you have lived here and ever looked at zillow it does not take much intelligence to understand how far off the values actually are...just typing my address in, I see one house down my street with a zestimate of $67,000....its lot appraised value is $278,000....The house across from me is zestimated at $1,200,000 and sold for $785,000 last year...half the rest are in the $250,000 range and are all closer to $400,000....that should scream to anyone that this tool is not useful here.
Even though the values are often poor - Zillow does have uses, even in Texas....Its just another tool. When used improperly it probably makes things worse, but when used properly it can help.
Zillow does have some useful information. It also has tons of innaccurate or misleading (Zestimate) information on it. The problem lies in that the average Joe does not know what is good information on Zillow and what is bad. The average person isn't familiar enough with real estate to get past the bad information on Zillow and in the end Zillow does more harm than good for many consumers. The average person for example thinks the agent's face next to the listing is the listing agent's face when in fact it's some agent who paid to be there. The consumer contacts this person in hopes of getting more information about the property and 9/10 the agent they connect with hasn't even been in the property. So, how does the consumer benefit there?
By the way, I live in a state where sales are public information and the Zestimates are still as innaccurate as you describe them in Texas.
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.
