How credible is Zillow.com vs. Hills. County Property Appraiser for market values inSouth Tampa? (sales, real estate market)

[Johnland]

I've been looking at my Virginia Park home's market value as estimated by both Zillow.com and the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser's website. The county is less than Zillow. It made me wonder if the county is being overly conservative or if Zillow is overly optimistic. Probably a blend of the two.

Any thoughts on the accuracy of either source for residential real estate market values?

[SLCPUNK]

Zillow often seems to be all over the place, I wouldn't count on it too much. General ballpark sure, but for accuracy, maybe ask a realtor to pull a comp for you. (Speaking of which I need one too, lol)

[TampaKaren]

There are no mass appraisal systems that can value a single property correctly. You can search recent sales on your local Property Appraiser website and a number of internet websites. These third-party valuation websites all get their information from public records (Florida is a disclosure state). As SLCPUNK said, a Realtor can prepare a report on comparable properties based on recent sales in the MLS as well. In many cases, the MLS sales will be more current than public records due to the time involved in government recording. The only way of really knowing is to get a professional appraisal. Even then, the report is based on the reason for the valuation (re-sale, re-finance, insurance, etc.) and is subject to a continually changing market.

HB 521 was signed into effect this year and now puts the burden of proof on the property appraisers for owners that challenge their tax bills. I'd suggest using this value to your advantage. More here --> http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2009/...comes-law.html

[tampaguy03]

Zillow may get there information from the County, but if the county records have not been updated, then Zillow is not a good estimate. Ive been in my house 10 years, bought it as a 4 bed/2bath, 1600sq feet...and it STILL says its a 3 bed/1 bath, 1200 sq feet. Realtor is the way to go in my opinion.

[BucFan]

zillow apprears to be outdated - big time.

just pulled up my address and noticed that they don't have half of my subdivision - and the construction has been completed for over a year

[Johnland]

Thanks all. Good advice...I appreciate the input. I tend to agree that Zillow is a little on the ambitious side and its accuracy may be suspect.

[Nav]

The property appraiser is definitely NOT the place to go to find accurate values. Zillow is all over the map since it always uses all recent sales It take no location info into account or the type of sale or condition of the property. Its strictly by the reported numbers. We had a burned out shell of a house in our neighborhood sell a while ago (for just the land value). Zillow dropped our estimated value by almost 60k because of it. 4 months later, we had an increase of 85k. (No new sales, but they adjusted anyways) Like was said earlier, use a realtor and get actual comps.

Nav

[Pragmaticus]

Zillow is good for entertainment!

Like others suggested your best bet is to get realtors, they could pull recent comps and additional info that is not easily accessible in public like foreclosures and so on.

But for just your research, you can use the "home value" feature of realtor.com that has cool feature displaying active as well as recent sold ones for a street that you type. These info is I believe as good as the one you get from realtors AND as timely I might add.

Good luck

[Johnland]

Thanks MeInDenudininFL...I wasn't aware of Realtor.com. It actually shows yet another range of values as compared to Zillow and the county. As others and you have said, it will boil down to getting an actual realtor if I want to know something realistic.

I can say that if new construction is any indicator of a real estate market bottoming out, there have been some teardowns recently in the neighborhood and new construction started. There hasn't been a teardown around here in a long time. Maybe real estate here is slowly coming out of the slump.

[housingcrashsurvivor]

These days the only worthy appraisal is an actual offer on your house. Everything else is zillow.