Zillow House Price vs Appraised Letter Price (Houston: sales, foreclosed)

[azamsharp]

Hello,

I was checking the price of my house on Zillow and it says $173K. But few months back I got an appraised letter from Appraisal district which calculated the price to be 140-150K.

Why so much difference? Is there anything I can do?

Also, what is driving the price of the house to go up. In the last 30 days it went up $5500. I live near 1960 and Champion Forest. Anything exciting going on in that area?

[diggity101]

you want the county appraised value to be as low as possible to keep your tax payment down.

That being said, zillow is garbage so I wouldn't put any stock into either of those figures. In my experience, they trail values more than lead them so my hunch would be you have a pretty good appraised value right now. No way to say for sure without researching the actual property.

[AnonForThis]

Ignore Zillow.

Sign up with Redfin using a throw away email account if you want privacy. There, you can see exactly what the homes in your neighborhood recently sold for, what allowances were given, even how the property was paid for. So you can tell if the buyer was one of those broke, unqualified FHA buyers that eventually lead to a neighborhood's decline. Or if he was a cash buyer.

That site gets around the whole Texas = non disclosure state thing. Maybe a Realtor here can explain how that happens, how much Redfin is paying them to release the information.

[Nodpete]

Zillow is a joke, they once had my house @750M, the most it's been worth is 400M. I don't know how they arrive at their numbers but I know they are wrong.

[azamsharp]

Thanks Everyone!

I have been always skeptical about Zillow and their pricing! I am not their pricing is wrong and not accurate.

[diggity101]

So you can tell if the buyer was one of those broke, unqualified FHA buyers that eventually lead to a neighborhood's decline. Or if he was a cash buyer.

ironically, I would say cash buyers would be more likely to be in a declining neighborhood because they are investors buying up distressed assets. With low interest rates, most people won't pay cash for a million dollar home, even if they can afford to.

As far as getting around non-disclosure, redfin contends that they have an active brokerage relationship with the "client" as soon as they register with their email, so they can give them the MLS sales data. It's been a point of contention for a while between online brokerages and local MLS's.

[AnonForThis]

Cash buyers have been all over Houston this year snatching nice homes away from those who intended to use financing. There are a lot of sob stories regarding that situation people have been telling all year.

As far as Redfin goes, that site really blows a hole through the embellished claims some make in here regarding in properties "in the loop." That site has no doubt made many enemies.

[sxrckr]

Zillow is extremely unreliable on the "zestimates" in Texas. They are often way off. Don't even bother.

[diggity101]

Originally Posted by AnonForThis

Cash buyers have been all over Houston this year snatching nice homes away from those who intended to use financing. There are a lot of sob stories regarding that situation people have been telling all year.

As far as Redfin goes, that site really blows a hole through the embellished claims some make in here regarding in properties "in the loop." That site has no doubt made many enemies.

In multiple offer situations, it could make sense to pay cash up front and finance later, but my point is the same. Most people realize that leveraging these low rates makes more sense than tying up so much liquidity.

Your assumption that anyone who uses FHA is somehow going to get foreclosed on is a little silly. Lenders are required to do a lot more due diligence than they were during the sub-prime fiasco.

I have no idea what you're talking about with your second point so I'll just skip that.

[Oildog]

I've found zillow inaccurate in two cites I've moved too.