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Mine had and I know it much less than my home it worth, in fact before it dropped about 7% this month it was lower than my homes value. I wonder if it's somehow in Zillows interest to do this. I do think prices have come down because inventory is low on starter homes and people are asking too much for them and there is no way the prices they are asking are equal to current comps for appraisals.
Mine went down last summer by about 12.5%, and afterward they pretended that it had never been where it was before that.
It's funny because -- for all the criticism Zillow gets -- it's always been right on the money with my house. Last summer, when the Zestimate peaked, the house appraised for like 1/2% more than the Zestimate, but then the Zestimate suddenly dropped by 12%, and the Zestimate history was revised to flatten the curve.
Ironic that after 7 years of complaining about inaccurate Zestimates Zillow finally has it in 'ballpark'
As I signed into City-Data I saw that my first post complaining about Zillows inaccurate Zestimates was exactly 7 years ago today and, reading a topic about 'Zestimates dropping' was ironic as Zillow has given several recent 'chunky' increases to the nonsense Zestimate on my home, with a 3% increase in the last 30 days.
It demonstrates the random way Zillow generate Zestimates as every time they make a 'biggish' increase or reduction they also re-baseline the Zestimate history making it totally worthless. Whilst I live in a hot real estate market NO facts about my home have changed in the 7 years, other than Zillow did correct the geo-mapping error that had my home located in a neighboring lower cost city, but that was 5 years ago and it is only this year that the Zestimate upward trend developed.
What I won't do is stop highlighting what a crappy company Zillow Group is as I feel strongly that imposing inaccurate Zestimates on millions of homes and refusing all reasonable requests to correct or delete purely as a means of generating revenues is morally reprehensible, and it is time that Zillow was subject to some form of regulation that allows Homeowners a #DoNotZestimate 'Opt Out' in the same way as you can opt out of unwanted spam phone calls by registering with #DoNotCall.
I equally realize that the fundamental failings of Zillows nonsense Zestimate algorithm can drive my homes Zestimate down 10% to 15% in coming months so its back where it started and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if that happens. The summary of my first post on this Forum (copied below) was that Zestimates were nothing more than "Intellectual Masturbation". Seven years later nothing has changed!!!
So many people question how good is the Zillow zestimate valuation and want to understand how the computer algorithm works. I found this helpful description on the Zillow website which you may find useful
We compute this figure by taking zillions of data points - much of this data is public - and entering them into a formula. This formula is built using what our statisticians call "a proprietary algorithm" - big words for "secret formula." Currently, we have data, Zestimates and Rent Zestimates on approximately 100 million homes on Zillow.
What's in this formula?
One eye of newt ... Actually, it's less wizardry than mathematics. When our statisticians developed the model to determine home values, they explored how homes in certain areas were similar (i.e., number of bedrooms and baths, and a myriad of other details) and then looked at the relationships between actual sale prices and those home details. These relationships form a pattern, and they used that pattern to develop a model to estimate a market value for a home.
Who calculates the Zestimate and how do they do it?
We don't have homing pigeons flying from land parcel to land parcel to come up with the Zestimate for a house, but we DO have statisticians who work all day - and some nights - with a huge amount of data. They live and breathe valuation models and tweak algorithms to get us closer to actual market value.
Mine dropped 1.4% or $ 8,500 in the past 30 days, but the rental estimate went up 50 bucks. Still over triple what I paid 29 years ago. As an appraiser, I never look at Zillow, but their value was right on this time.
I’m in a socioeconomically mixed town with older housing stock. If a house in the less desirable part of town with the 1950s kitchen & bath sells, my Zillow estimate drops. If a newly remodeled home in the desirable section sells, my estimate goes up. Zillow can’t see the $200k+ of remodeling I dumped in my house. All it knows is lot size, square footage, number of bedrooms & baths, and the town tax assessment.
I have no idea what someone would pay for my house. More than Zillow estimates but there aren’t any good comps. I have no intention to ever sell so it’s not important.
Do realtors notify them about the correct price, or do they just see the listing as it comes through and adjust?
Like Mike, I never talk to Zillow ... their algorithm must pick it up and self-correct when the listing goes active.
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Ironic that after 7 years of complaining about inaccurate Zestimates Zillow finally has it in 'ballpark'
