How accurate is Zillow?? (square foot, prices, properties, renting)

[dj32]

if you live in an older neighborhood chock full or new homes, remodeled homes and awful "rehab, scrape off" homes it is way off. Lot value is 400K here so if that sells and it scraped, the value of the 1M home next door goes way down. I'd go to your county assessment website and pull sold comps.

[Jamesww]

The range on zillow is almost always accurate but, make a range wide enough and who could be wrong. In a few areas of the country like Seattle, where zillow got its start, neighborhoods that have been around for 6 to 10 years and have a good amount of turnover zillow gets really close. Again negative side of this is that most homes don't fall in the fore mentioned sentence.

[nitram]

I believe Zillow is going to be in some trouble with lawsuits if they don't get their act together.
In my locale all the homes are individually customized in the $450,000 to $600,000 range as of recent sales. Zillow just dropped mine from $549,000 to $299,000 within 3 weeks and shows it located 8 properties from where it's suppose to be in another area of much lower priced duplexes. Plus the older homes that need fixer upper in the area are Zillowed at a much higher value than those who rehabbed their homes.
As others have mentioned, MLS comps are the more accurate when comparing apples to oranges. And besides square footage and style of the home, it needs to be taken into consideration any signifcant improvements that do add value to the residence.

[2bindenver]

Zillow is not an appraiser. Think entertainment. No one should rely on information they obtained on a website for property valuation.


Zillow is Real Estate Porn.

[aahlawat]

Zillow is a reference not accurate. It is always off and most of the time it doesn't justify the price of any home. I Don't use Zillow for any comps or any accuracy. I use Zillow to feel happy about the price of my home and it is nothing but the dream price.

[agreatlife]

One need only look at the discussion forum on Zillow to know that Zillow has serious issues. I like what a poster here said: Zillow = Real Estate Porn.

[NCHOMEBOY]

Zillow is all over the board........it's based soley on square footage and does not take into account things like upgrade, lot locations, etc. How could it? Get yourself a good real estate agent and have them pull comps for you. There are too many variables for Zillow to gather in order to give you a good valuation.

[shadowwalker]

Zwillow is a Joke, not even close to reality. I have checked prices on houses I personally know the selling price of in three states,that was not an inflated price. And zwillow was waaaaaaay off.

[sierraAZ]

Originally Posted by nitram

I believe Zillow is going to be in some trouble with lawsuits if they don't get their act together.
In my locale all the homes are individually customized in the $450,000 to $600,000 range as of recent sales. Zillow just dropped mine from $549,000 to $299,000 within 3 weeks and shows it located 8 properties from where it's suppose to be in another area of much lower priced duplexes. Plus the older homes that need fixer upper in the area are Zillowed at a much higher value than those who rehabbed their homes.
As others have mentioned, MLS comps are the more accurate when comparing apples to oranges. And besides square footage and style of the home, it needs to be taken into consideration any signifcant improvements that do add value to the residence.

It used to be somewhat better, but they did some major overhaul in Dec (I happened to notice because I tried to use it the night of the project) after which it became a total joke. After this "upgrade" , everything got thrown out of whack. The address I've been watching all of a sudden got connected to a house in a different zip code! In some time it ended up in its real location, but was being shown as multi-unit place. Ever since these changes there's been nothing but complaints on zillow. It can hurt a lot of people and I can see lawsuits coming, too. Was reading a blog about their accuracy and the most curious example was a house which burned down 18 months ago. At this time there's no building there whatsoever, just an empty lot. Zillow still counts it and estimates it as if it's a house.

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by CouponJack

Consensus on this board is thumbs down on Zillow estimates. Wildly inaccurate on the high and low side. You can get comps on recent solds from them or cyberhomes dot com. However stay away from the estimates!

I tried that site, too and it was way off for my area. Zillow was off, but correctly reflected the differences in the housing stock values (spot built area developed over 80 years) while the cyber site had homes with far less house, features and than mine way overpriced in comparison.

No luck with either site for me