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I find that seller ridiculous. How could anyone possibly expect Zillow can estimate the exact worth of a home never having set foot on the property? Zillow doesn't know the condition of the roof, can't see if my neighbor is a hoarder with junk all over the lawn, can't tell if the kitchen or bath has been upgraded or needs to be, etc, etc.
"...ridiculous?" Why? Brandon asked him about selling. He didn't ask to sell.
Regardless of the source, why should he settle for less than any amount, if he is not considering actually selling?
And, as Brandon said, the market is nuts. Who is to assume what the right price is for a property, without letting buyers bid to the moon?
Our area in SoCal has a lot of high-end custom homes, so Zillow estimates around here can be pretty off-base. Since we're also a beach city, just the value of the land can vary plenty as you get closer to the beach or if there's a potential for ocean views, and Zillow doesn't seem to do a good job with those factors either. I've even seen some human appraisers get things really wrong around here, especially if they're not that familiar with the area.
Totally agree with this.
Location
Location
Location
Zillow messed us over when we FiRST tried to sell our metro Denver home. We had paid $227k for it in 2012, and listed it in 2016 for $295k, which was the Zillow estimate, after my husband lost his job and we were considering moving out of state. However, the very next day after we signed the listing agreement, Zillow lowered its estimate by $40,000 to $255k Our house was listed for five weeks with not one single offer and only a few showings. (Our realtor persuaded us NOT to lower the price as we were not in a hurry to sell. However, my husband found another position he liked, so we ended up taking the house off the market.)
And so when we listed it again four years later, we paid no attention to the Zillow estimate, which was then up to about $470k. Our realtor said that we should list it at $440k, but we decided to take no chances because we needed to close within a six weeks after listing, so we listed it for $425k, and it sold for for $430k the second day after we listed it, after receiving four offers in two days -- two at listed price and two higher.
The following week, the Zillow price went down to what the sold price was!
Did your Realtor advise you to price your house based on the Zestimate?
Zillow also shows rentals that are not on the market, already rented. Or for rent and sales. Other sites do the same. The page is not worth the paper it is printed on, literally.
Zillow had my former house at over 1 million right around the time we sold for $550k.
Zillow is right in line with the value of our current house, though, and Redfin and Realtor.com are both in agreement.
Realtor.com also had previous pictures of our house- when it was a gutted mess It was really interesting to see.
We had the newer pictures taken down and eventually the rest of the sites caught up and now they all show most of the old pictures. For some reason, though, Zillow suddenly added 1000 sq ft to the size of our home after we took the pictures down. That made the home size bigger than the lot size!
The simple fact is we always compare the list price with Zestimate. Whether it's accurate or not, the simple fact is the perception becomes reality.
But I've learned not to trust it 100%. For example, when I bought a rental property the property tax was 3X higher than what Zillow stated, it's a surprised unwelcome expense. Also I don't trust the quoted rental value, always verify with local property manager who has a more accurate database.
Another discrepancy is on "my Zillow" my house is listed worth $1M+ but if I just type in the address, the Zestimate shows only $780K.
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It was really interesting to see.
