>So within, basically 2.5 blocks, in a cookie cutter suburb, we have almost $100k variance, with Zestimates at least $50k under market prices in some cases, and $50k over in others, and smaller homes Zestimating to be worth more than larger homes next door.
Zillow will only know what a house is worth when it is either sold or when you have it appraised and manually enter the details. I don't think any reasonable person would expect Zillow to know about improvements made (like work done inside a house or landscaping).
My neighbor just listed his house for a price that I thought was kind of high. He sold it within a day of holding an open house. My zestimate went up 2 days later.
I think Zillow actually works surprisingly well, for what it does.
> I don't think any reasonable person would expect Zillow to know about improvements made (like work done inside a house or landscaping).
Well sure, but one of the reasons local realtors have dumped it as a source of information is that buyers and sellers were starting to latch onto the Zestimates like they were gospel.
If a Zestimate was too high (like my neighbor's house), the seller would insist it go on the market at a very high value, and then end up with a bad relationship with their realtor when it didn't sell. Realtors don't have time for this nonsense.
If a Zestimate was too low (like my house), buyers would want to negotiate down under a fair market value. Again, realtors don't have time for this kind of thing.
In either case, Zillow was skewing the market. And we're not talking by a couple thousand dollars either, but on 20-40% swings.
In a neighborhood like mine, where the Zestimate is off by up to $100k from one house to the comparable one next door, the Zestimate becomes a hindrance on the fair market and causes more problems than it's worth.
It's like people getting medical advice off the internet, it's better not to because it causes too many problems in the established industry and not in a good startup "disruption" sense but in a "fucking everything up" sense.
The reaction from local realtors has been pretty swift and strong against Zillow for these, among other reasons. In an area like mine, I'm not even sure what it's useful for: the tax assessment fmv is wildly different, actual buy/sell prices are wildly different, it provides almost no value for pricing your own home to sell, and no value when buying a home that your local MLS doesn't provide (and even worse it's frequently wildly out of date). I suppose if I was looking for a rental it might provide some value, but the few rentals in my area have long since been occupied and Zillow still shows them up and available.
It's basically the worst kind of disinformation, close enough to look reliable, but ultimately a waste of people's time.
Zillow will only know what a house is worth when it is either sold or when you have it appraised and manually enter the details. I don't think any reasonable person would expect Zillow to know about improvements made (like work done inside a house or landscaping).
My neighbor just listed his house for a price that I thought was kind of high. He sold it within a day of holding an open house. My zestimate went up 2 days later.
I think Zillow actually works surprisingly well, for what it does.