This week Real Living announced that they’ll be downloading 12,000 of our listings to Zillow.
Zillow has been highly controversial since they created the dot-com company. Their “Zestimates”, which supposedly were to give price estimates for what a home was worth, were extremely inaccurate or even non-existant. There were many other issues with their site, their goals, and even a couple lawsuits against their Zestimates. To say they weren’t well received is to put it mildly.
In checking some local Central Ohio homes, they now seem to have Zestimates (which they did not before), but those Zestimates still should not be considered useful in determining a legitimate price for a home. They’re pulling the data from the Auditor’s web site, but apparently their program isn’t synced properly as they’re recording the homes I viewed, as having 3 baths rather than 2.5.
The homes they show as comps – aren’t. In the examples I checked, they were using comps as far away as 6 miles, in a different town, in a different school district. They don’t consider whether the home is a 2-story, or a 1st floor MBR or a ranch. They can’t know whether the home has upgrades inside or a finished basement. There’s no allowance in their Zestimate for condition or location either. So much of the extraneous info they include is useless.
While I put my listings on as many web sites as possible, I’m not sure yet how I feel about having them placed on Zillow. I would feel much better if it weren’t for the inaccurate Zestimates or free-range comps. Once our listings are uploaded – with the listing price – what affect will there be when the list price doesn’t match the Zestimate? What affect will that have on the price a buyer offers?
My seller’s list price is based on actual comparisons of similar nearby homes – similar amentities – same school district – similar features – and similar neighborhood location. Is a buyer going to believe my research or the Zestimate?
Perhaps, Zillow will have no affect, since I seldom hear people discussing it as a means to search for homes for sale. Other agents have indicated that their clients use it more as a fun toy to see how inaccurate it is. I guess time will tell as to whether this will be a viable tool for actually helping to sell homes.
Realtor.com and Craigslist still seem to be much better tools – at least that is what I’ve actually experienced. The jury is still out for Zillow in Central Ohio.
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Elaine Reese
614-825-8860Real Living HER379 W Olentangy StPowell Ohio 43065
Assisting home sellers and buyers throughout Central Ohio in achieving their dreams.
2 responses so far ↓
frankschulteladbeck // 01/19/2008 at 8:30 am |
I have been getting a lot of questions about the Zestimates, and I have heard a few Realtors complain about them, because of the differences and inaccuracies. As Zillow makes its presence more known, this may really become a source for a customer service issue. I believe it was Zillow that is now listing the homes from newspaper listings, so local papers are linking to it.
I do not mind Zillow or Trulia so much as ideas for steps forward in real estate, but the quality of information emanating from those sites is disturbing. When I commented on Zillow about how a home inspection was performed and what were typical of an inspector’s findings, I caused a storm in a teacup with non-professionals shouting me down because they did not like how an inspection would be performed. I tried to explain the reasoning behind the inspection, but that seemed to cause more anger. Since then I have not been back, although I noticed that Zillow has been advertising for home inspectors to be listed on their site.
elainereese // 01/19/2008 at 2:01 pm |
I’ve heard others (on ActiveRain) mention that they were attacked on Zillow as you were.
A LOT of Realtors® have complained about the Zestimates. Sellsius coined a good term – Unzillowable.
The Zestimate is totally computer generated and has no relationship to the actual value/price of the home. If buyers or sellers want to use it as ‘gospel’, that’s where it causes problems. That’s what one of the lawsuits was about.