Do those Zillow estimates mean anything? (RE agent, 5%, commission, percent)

[censusdata]

Realtors seem to use price of similar homes in the area as a guide. I've seen a house for sale for a year at $55k that Zillow says is worth $70k. That doesn't make sense, someone would scoop up and resale something with such a large gap. There are a lot of factors in home prices, things like a weird yard, big power lines in the backyard, lack of alley parking, etc have a big effect on prices but probably aren't considered on Zillow or even real life appraisals. And how can you judge a house only from the outside? A rebuilt kitchen adds thousands to the value, while old wallpaper in every room subtracts thousands.

[DMenscha]

Man I wish people would stop posting about Zillow estimates. Every time someone posts about Zillow, I have to check out my own home online and collect my guffaw. BTW it went up 30k LAST MONTH. Awesome!

[phantompilot]

Zillow is in fact quite accurate, because its only a range, and usually a wide enough one to include the actual value. Of course they realize homes vary and it would be stupid to try to put an exact figure on the value of your home. But generally improvements and/or condition of the home still put the house in a certain range. That is where stats/big data come in. They pull assessor records, so if you've made improvements to the home that trigger reassessment, Zillow knows. If you're a hoarder and have 31 cats and the whole place smells like pee, the range is still wide enough so that even though your home's market value might be under the comps by 20K because it needs all new floors and paint, its going to include those kinds of below-market rate properties. And Zillow knows what the comps for your neighborhood are...plus they have a database of offers and "make me move" to model buyer and seller opinions - compare that with actual transaction prices and they get a pretty good picture of what RANGE the value of the average/standard/typical home like yours will fall into.

I really don't understand why people think Zillow is the same as an appraisal, although even that is also only someone's best guess, but based on (hopefully) a personal visit and thorough inspection...although some appraisers just do a drive by and snap exterior photos so they can say they went out (seem them do this- often not even bothering to get out of the car!).

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around Zillow and frankly undeserved animosity to their model and service. If you understand it, it makes perfect sense. If you think its something it isn't well then I would guess you probably have a lot more problems than just not getting Zillow. Like getting dressed, chewing gum...finding your own rear end with both hands and a flashlight...

[LCTMadison]

The Zestimate on my personal home is actually pretty accurate....but overall those Zestimates are bunk and buyers put too much credence in them. They are wildly inaccurate in my area.

For example, there is an empty lot in a neighborhood I have been researching that is worth probably $100k or so. The Zestimate is for almost $500k now....about two months ago it was around $480k. Zestimate states "unknown square footage"....um, maybe because there is NO HOUSE!

We need to just PIN one of these Zestimate threads and maybe new ones won't pop up, as this has been discussed ad nauseam.

[huckster]

Within a range for error it is accurate. When the housing bubble burst in the middle of the "Great Recession"--Zillow values reflected the prices of what homes were selling for in my neighborhood.
Now seven years later it , the Zillow website is pretty accurate again as to what sales prices are. Not dead on, no, but in the ballpark. It is not an appraisal but an estimate.
It is very nice to see home values recovering, there is hope that the economy is getting better. My home is not at that the over inflated price it was valued at in 2007 but it the value is going up slowly.

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by rdflk

Everybody says Zillow isn't accurate, Zillow isn't accurate. Don't go by that. Well I had an appraisal YEARS ago for a re-fi , I think. And what do you know, it cam back as what the Zillow number was.

So was Zillow accurate?...or did the figgin lazy arse appraiser come by, look at the house. And then go back to his office pull up Zillow and use that?

I had plenty of equity and knew I wasn't underwater so it wasn't an issue. So while I was hoping for a higher number, I didn't dig into it and make him justify his number. As long as the number "worked for me," I didn't really make a big deal out of "wait a minute, everyone knows Zillow is not a dependable, accurate barometer. Should I have, or was i OK to let it go?

Originally Posted by dblackga

My bet is that the appraiser was lazy. :-) If the number worked for you, good enough.

Let's face it, Zillow can't be wrong about EVERY house price -- the odds are they are going to come pretty close SOMETIMES. Unfortunately, there are people who think that Zillow NEVER makes a mistake, and those are the ones that you have to talk down (or up) from ridiculous estimates.

Had one friend whose Zillow estimate on her home was $300,000. Nice, except that she had paid $1.3 million, as did everyone else on that block of unique luxury townhomes. The $300K was a number from an old tax record that hadn't been updated yet. A year later, it had risen to $500K. The tax assessor then thought it should be $2.5 million . . . Sheesh!

I can almost guarantee you that the appraiser never referenced the zillow site while completing your report.

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by svicious22

Zestimates are complete garbage. A sham.

But the site itself can be very useful. I use it to look up recent sales. The values (zestimates) in my area are pretty accurate as are the pricing trend graphs. Obviously condition and many other factors can't be accounted for for particular homes, so I would never use a zestimate to say make an offer on a house.

[LCTMadison]

Originally Posted by TimtheGuy

But the site itself can be very useful. I use it to look up recent sales. The values (zestimates) in my area are pretty accurate as are the pricing trend graphs. Obviously condition and many other factors can't be accounted for for particular homes, so I would never use a zestimate to say make an offer on a house.

That's a great approach to use with Zillow....the problem is 95% of other buyers take what they find on Zillow as the gospel truth and that site is full of errors, then we as agents have to work to overcome the bad info our clients are getting off the sites. Our company employs someone full time to handle marketing and the majority of her time lately has been spent trying to get erroneous information on listings and sold listings corrected of these third party sites. She'll get something corrected on the site, and two days later something else is wrong.

[Old Guard]

Originally Posted by phantompilot

Like getting dressed, chewing gum...finding your own rear end with both hands and a flashlight...

Why would I wish to find my rear end with both hands and a flashlight? What kind of freaky **** am I into?

[PeaceOut001]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Zestimates are crap.
They mean nothing.
Pay no attention.

Do your own CMA.

They tend to be 20% over or under estimated. It's just another tool for comparison purposes. Realtors will argue with this. There are other threads about this you
may want to check out.