Yikes. I just bought a house for 100K above the Zillow Zestimate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Zillow is not a "lagging indicator" -- it is garbage.

Truth hurts on your house

another poster who thinks it's garbage. we bought our home 3 years ago for $700K, and based on comps it may be now up to $750K (yeyyyyyyyyyyy), according to Zollow the value would be $950K. that's total BS, I would sell it today if that was correct.

[Anonymous]

I've heard this about Zillow, but I'm curious if there are other more reputable valuation websites (Trulia?). I'd rather not pay for an appraisal to see if my house is in line with the market. We're not selling anytime soon but it would be good to know as we consider home improvement projects to ensure we're not over improving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard this about Zillow, but I'm curious if there are other more reputable valuation websites (Trulia?). I'd rather not pay for an appraisal to see if my house is in line with the market. We're not selling anytime soon but it would be good to know as we consider home improvement projects to ensure we're not over improving.

Trulia's no better than Zillow, although I guess if you did a quick matrix of all of them you might get some better snapshot.

I wouldn't worry about over-improving. If you're not selling anytime soon, do what you want. Why would you refrain from doing something you want to do to your house based on what some hypothetical seller in some hypothetical future might think? That's no way to live.

[Anonymous]

mine was pretty accurate but i update the zillow info

[Anonymous]

Our house is listed on Zillow for the tax assessment, so it's "accurate" in that sense. It's about 60k below the minimum I'd sell for and what I think market is.

[Anonymous]

I saw an internet survey once (so it may be no more reliable than zillow ) but IIRC, about 1/3 of people thought zillow was within 10% of the real price, 1/3 thought it was within 25%, and 1/3 thought it wasn't within 25%.

[Anonymous]

Zillow is not close to being accurate.

Zillow has our sales price $500k more than we actually purchased it for. $1.5 instead of $1.05.

Due to this--I think the zestimate is also higher than it should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our house is listed on Zillow for the tax assessment, so it's "accurate" in that sense. It's about 60k below the minimum I'd sell for and what I think market is.

God NO. The tax assessments in our N.Arl neighborhood are about $200-300k below retail sale price. Additionally, some of the houses that were renovated after buying were not reassed at the new rate. There are some houses 3 times the size of ours that pay 1/3 of what we do in the tax assessment. Tell me I am not pissed about that! The Board is worthless and doesn't give a sh*t at appeal process.

[Anonymous]

I guess I'm an outlier - for my neighborhood and my house Zillow, Trulia and Redfin are all pretty accurate. In fact, I think Zillow and Trulia both OVERestimate the value of my house. I actually find Redfin's tool to be the most useful because it allows you to compare your home to nearby similar sales. So you can base it not just on basic info like SF, # beds and baths, etc, but on the condition and interior finishing of the home, central AC vs. none, and more. Their estimate is pretty damned close to what I would price my house for and what I think it would sell for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I'm an outlier - for my neighborhood and my house Zillow, Trulia and Redfin are all pretty accurate. In fact, I think Zillow and Trulia both OVERestimate the value of my house. I actually find Redfin's tool to be the most useful because it allows you to compare your home to nearby similar sales. So you can base it not just on basic info like SF, # beds and baths, etc, but on the condition and interior finishing of the home, central AC vs. none, and more. Their estimate is pretty damned close to what I would price my house for and what I think it would sell for.

In general, it is accurate for model home neighborhoods. The suburbs that were planned communities and there are 3-6 models throughout the neighborhood.

It is very dicey in historic neighborhoods where every single house is completely different. The condition of these homes also varies greatly depending on what was done over 100s of years. Land value should be a no-brainer--but the homes not so much and this is where Zillow can't keep up.

[Anonymous]

I'm fond of the Bank of America online appraisal tool. It gives a (fairly broad) price range, rather than a single figure, and lists the comps that it's using.

[Anonymous]

I used to think Zillow was pretty inaccurate, it tends to underestimate my house because it has the wrong lot size. I just checked and I think it is a bit low, but not a lot. It lists my house at $820K, I would guess $850-870. It lists my neighbor's house at $926K, there is not a $100,000 difference between our house and theirs. Their estimate may be a bit high.

[Anonymous]

Redfin is useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I'm an outlier - for my neighborhood and my house Zillow, Trulia and Redfin are all pretty accurate. In fact, I think Zillow and Trulia both OVERestimate the value of my house. I actually find Redfin's tool to be the most useful because it allows you to compare your home to nearby similar sales. So you can base it not just on basic info like SF, # beds and baths, etc, but on the condition and interior finishing of the home, central AC vs. none, and more. Their estimate is pretty damned close to what I would price my house for and what I think it would sell for.

In general, it is accurate for model home neighborhoods. The suburbs that were planned communities and there are 3-6 models throughout the neighborhood.

It is very dicey in historic neighborhoods where every single house is completely different. The condition of these homes also varies greatly depending on what was done over 100s of years. Land value should be a no-brainer--but the homes not so much and this is where Zillow can't keep up.

That makes a lot of sense. I am in a rowhouse community in DC where most of the houses have generally the same layout, SF, lot size, etc, so that is a very good point. I agree it probably has less value in a less planned community - but I'm glad it works for me right now!

[Anonymous]

Agree with the other posters----Zillow is useless. Zillow puts my house in Mclean at $611,000. No way it's $611,000. The house down the street just went under contract for 925,000, and a neighbor just sold his a couple of months ago for 750,000 and had what was becoming a bidding war but sold for the list price and not above b/c of a sense of honor.