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While the zestimate for a specific house might be worthless, I think the question is whether or not the overall TRENDS for a specific neighborhood are still valid. I think that if you zoom out enough, it can confirm some general information (RE market where I am is much stronger in 2013 than 2012) but I don't think the trends are as valid if you're looking at it from month to month, let alone week to week.
Never, never, never rely on a Zillow Zestimate to determine housing market values. There are many topics about this in this forum. While a small # of Zestimates are close to real world home values, a very large percentage of them are way off and should not be taken too seriously.
Even though I posted our home on Zillow to use as a neighborhood reference, our Real Estate Agent/Broker cautioned us to "not get too excited about Zillow," since they tend to "be pretty 'optimistic' in their estimates" ...
As with any forms of government , apparently "Zestimates" are also to be taken with a grain of salt ...
Of course, YMMV
ok - I think I finally got it... after countless threads on this topic here. The Zestimate is exactly what the home is worth, what you should list at, exactly what it will sell at, and makes a darn great mocha cappuccino. Phew. Glad we got that worked out.
I know that the OP meant to say "Housing" in the thread title, but actually "Hosing" is more appropriate with Zillow Zestimates.
Ooooops Apologies for the typo. It should read 'housing' but as you suggest 'hosing' (or better still for Zillow perhaps 'hozing') is more appropriate.
So I have read an explanation by Zillow that they had a major screw up when doing a routine update of Zestimates which caused the substantial fall in Zestimates for certain homes - whatever that means. What this highlights is the lack of configuration control that Zillow exercises in computing Zestimates, and when over 17 million of 100 million Zestimates are already more than 25% incorrect it highlights Zillows refusal to correct or delete Zestimates brought to their attention that are substantially correct.
The sooner that homeowners have the right to sign up with a DoNotZestimate website to opt out of Zillows nonsense the better for everyone. When we can opt out of unsolicited phone calls by registering with DoNotCall why shouldn't we be able to opt out of unsolicited Zestimates computed by a flawed algorithm and with a lack of care and attention to ensure that homeowners are not caused unnecessary misery and potential financial damage.
The sooner that homeowners have the right to sign up with a DoNotZestimate website to opt out of Zillows nonsense the better for everyone.
Why bother, there is a ton of other websites like Zillow. It would be a never ending game of whack-a-mole. Better yet, why not invent a website with only super high values? People would love it. The numbers would be just as meaningful.... that is... useless.
They claim my friends just sold their house for $297,000. Huh? It wasn't on the market. And they still live there...........and if they did sell it would be for a heck of a lot more money than that.....in the $700,000 range. However, they did buy a condo for $297,000 in the same town for their elderly parents.
Where and how they got this bogus information is beyond comprehension as the condo purchase is reflected properly everywhere else.
A neighbor negotiated an off-market short sale on their house, similar thing happened.
My Zestimate is up another $40K this week. While I'd like to believe I somehow gained $200K in equity in the last year, I'm not taking it too seriously. Otherwise it would be time to cash out and head to Mexico.
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RE: Zillow 'Zestimates' and Reality
, apparently "Zestimates" are also to be taken with a grain of salt ... 
