Any Experience on Accuracy of Home Value Sites....Zillow, Trulia, Etc. (days on market, for sale)

[mikeandaija2009]

Going through the websites to see what the value our home might be. There is a large price differential from sites I visited.

Zillow..........$292,000.00 (that would be great!)
Trulia..........$245,000.00
Homes.com..$236,500.00
ReMax.........$230,500.00

Curious to see if anyone has had any experience on which might be the closest, or are they all off and is there a better site?

[dcp528]

An appraiser can give you more of an accurate number IMO. But you can look at the numbers you found as the high/low amounts for your house and come up with a median number. Hope this helps.

[bbronston]

You probably don't want to hear this because it sounds so cliche but the value of your home is equal to the most you can get for it from a buyer, assuming you would take that amount. It doesn't matter what any of these info providers come up with as a number. If there's no lender involved, it doesn't even matter what an appraiser thinks. If you can reach an agreement with a buyer and neither of you are under any duress of any type, the assumption is that you think you got the most you could get, and the buyer thinks he's paying the least he could pay to get it.
Now, that's the theory of it. The reality is that both a buyer and a seller are going to want to know what similar properties have gone for, and then a comparison to those properties is made, and a determination is made (within the context of the direction of the market) to arrive at an approximate value. Then the willing buyer and seller thing takes over.
These websites try to use very sophisticated formulas to predict value but they can't take into account the "art" of real estate. So, values vary wildly because each company's guru has a different theory on how to use all the available data points. I'm biased but I am convinced that none of them can replace the opinion of a local, knowledgeable real estate pro who knows what they are doing. If one of these websites happens to be close, it is usually not because of a better model but because of dumb luck. Otherwise, that model would be accurate all the time.

[macrodome2]

I've noticed Zillow tends to fluctuate up and down with no particular rhyme or reason. I found getting a list of recently sold homes and figuring out the per sq ft for similar homes in the area you are in or considering buying in is the best way to determine the value. This is relatively straight forward for newer homes, but gets trickier as the home ages as a lot depends on what has been upgraded and what hasn't. Zillow by the way has no way of knowing this either.

[Restrain]

We have found Zillow to be highly inaccurate. Remember that Zillow, etc does not know what the home is actually like. It just takes available data and puts it into a mass valuation calculator.

[RoadVettes]

Originally Posted by bbronston

You probably don't want to hear this because it sounds so cliche but the value of your home is equal to the most you can get for it from a buyer, assuming you would take that amount. It doesn't matter what any of these info providers come up with as a number. If there's no lender involved, it doesn't even matter what an appraiser thinks. If you can reach an agreement with a buyer and neither of you are under any duress of any type, the assumption is that you think you got the most you could get, and the buyer thinks he's paying the least he could pay to get it.
Now, that's the theory of it. The reality is that both a buyer and a seller are going to want to know what similar properties have gone for, and then a comparison to those properties is made, and a determination is made (within the context of the direction of the market) to arrive at an approximate value. Then the willing buyer and seller thing takes over.
These websites try to use very sophisticated formulas to predict value but they can't take into account the "art" of real estate. So, values vary wildly because each company's guru has a different theory on how to use all the available data points. I'm biased but I am convinced that none of them can replace the opinion of a local, knowledgeable real estate pro who knows what they are doing. If one of these websites happens to be close, it is usually not because of a better model but because of dumb luck. Otherwise, that model would be accurate all the time.

I agree completely with this. Having recently sold my home in NY, I can say that this is why we were able to sell our home quickly in a transaction that both seller and buyer were happy. Zillow, Trulia,etc...were all over the place on estimates, and none were close to the actual sale price.

[Sunshine Rules]

Zillow offers "zestimates" which they say they calculate based on some proprietary formula they have, along with public info and user entered data. Zillow does, if you read the fine print, state that their price estimates are a starting point for homeowners or home buyers and should not be the only data used to determine value.

An article by the Washington Business Journal this year stated that Zillow is correct about 50% of the time with their estimates. It also mentioned that Zillow admits they "can't match a local real estate professional on the streets of a particular market."

Here's a link to the article;
McEnearney Associates reports says Zillow's online home value for Greater Washington miss the mark - Washington Business Journal

Zillow does provide useful information. They do show recent sales in a neighborhood. They show pricing trends, which do tend to be more accurate. These pricing trends show if home prices are going up or down in specific areas.

Overall I think Zillow gives the public ballpark values and overall trends, but don't count on their Zestimates if you are buying or selling a home.

The best way to get an accurate value on a particular home is to ask a local Realtor to complete a CMA for you. The Realtor should look at the features of the subject property, then find similar recent sold properties as comparables. Once comparables are selected, the values should be adjusted if necessary for features that are different (for example - the subject home has a fireplace but the comparable does not). Once adjustments are made, the Realtor can calculate the average price per square foot, median and average sales prices, even give you average Days on Market. The agent can then generate a report for you from the MLS, giving you the features of the subject home, the comparable homes, plus all of the related statistics.

Bottom line, real estate sites offer a lot of good, general information, price trends, sales information, etc but do not rely on their value estimates of a particular property for accuracy.

[CSRSJim]

I think the other posts provide good info.
If one of those websites is within 10-15% that is all you could expect (maybe worse).
ie if the house is "worth" $250,000 those sites could easily be $225,000-$275,000 (10%) or even $212,500-$287,500 (15%). And the point about the buyer applies as well because one buyer might be willing to pay 10% different than another. And a quick sale might be worth a 10% lower price to one seller, but not to another.

And things like flooring (ceramic tile or wood compared to carpet), grade of kitchen cabinets, energy efficiency (insulation and HVAC equipment), etc. change the homes value also. Those websites don't know what is inside the house or its condition either!

When I sold my last house, I interviewed 3 realestate agents and each provided a price estimate. They varied by the same as the above. I like the idea of an actual appraisal, but it is just guidance as well... a buyer needing a mortgage will need an independant appraisal anyway.

You are doing the right thing by getting several estimates from various sources, and also I recommend interviewing 3 agents when you are ready to list the house for sale.

[Surbiton]

Originally Posted by Restrain

We have found Zillow to be highly inaccurate. Remember that Zillow, etc does not know what the home is actually like. It just takes available data and puts it into a mass valuation calculator.

I concur with that and to compound the errors Zillow seems to demonstrate poor configuration control over how it manages the vast quantity of raw data it buys from 3rd parties to process in its flawed Aestimate algorithm. How do I know? they had my home located in a city 6 miles away due to what they called a geo mapping error but still refused to correct what was a meaningless Zestimate.

Additionally Zillow has recently admitted to 'glitches' with Zestimates - not sure how they differentiate when 17% of 106 million Zestimates are more than 25% inaccurate. Here is the link from Zillow admitting the technical problems causing massive variations in Zestimates.

Why did my Zillow estimate drop from 2.2 Million to ... - Zillow Real Estate Advice


"We are aware of a bug with a very small subset of Zestimates. Roughly speaking, if the Zestimate has had a major change from March 31 compared with its neighbors it may be due to this bug. We're defining "major change" for this purpose as a jump/drop of 25% or more. We are working to resolve this as soon as possible and will update Zestimate charts soon."

[macrodome2]

Originally Posted by Surbiton

I concur with that and to compound the errors Zillow seems to demonstrate poor configuration control over how it manages the vast quantity of raw data it buys from 3rd parties to process in its flawed Aestimate algorithm. How do I know? they had my home located in a city 6 miles away due to what they called a geo mapping error but still refused to correct what was a meaningless Zestimate.

I suspect that Zillow gets periodic "raw data" feeds that it uploads into it's system. Correcting your entry once would not prevent it from getting uploaded incorrectly with the next raw data update. There is probably a source other than Zillow that is responsible for the error. Even if they corrected the location so their software would do a correct calculation, it would only get corrupt the next time they did a data upload.

My husband and I have dealt with many a software program that gets its data externally and without correcting the source correcting that one data point is useless as it will recur as soon as the data tables are updated.