<p>I’ve never looked at Zillow but I peeked at our block of 6 houses. Only one has changed hands in the last 10 years outside the family but for none of the houses did Zillow have square footage, or number of beds and baths or really any information yet “somehow” Zillow had “valued” the homes. It might work in a more urban area or in an area where houses change hands frequently. Chase’s calculator at least shows up “not available” for this chunk of homes. OP I wouldn’t be too concerned. If and when you sell your home it will be valued professionally. We were retirement home shopping last year so I went and looked at Zillow for the street we were looking at. Many of the homes then and still now are foreclosures, short sales, Homepath homes and yet Zillow still has them valued way higher. I checked our cabin that we built over a decade ago with cash and sweat equity. Zillow says there isn’t anything at that address. In my opinion Zillow is either too high or too low or just has no idea there is even a home on the land…what good is that information? I agree with the previous poster…Zillow is rather useless except as a curiosity tool.</p>
<p>Zillow used to be fairly accurate in my town but now it’s mostly a joke. They list houses as being on the market that have sold months ago, and the Zestimates are wildly inaccurate.</p>
<p>Claim your house on Zillow, then file a customer support request for them to change the Zestimate, with your supporting comps. List recently sold houses in your area with similar square footage, lot size, and number of bedrooms & bathrooms.</p>
<p><a href=“Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgages & Home Values”>Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgages & Home Values;
<p>I just checked the Chase estimator–same misinformation. Also has our neighbors house is about $100,000 less than it would be. Cool site though, thanks!</p>
<p>My favorite site for tracking real estate is Trulia.com. It doesn’t give a precise estimate for your home, but gives a value based on comparable sales and provides detailed information on the market trends. Also has a new feature for crime activity, but the accuracy is questionable. If you google your address followed by “Trulia” it should take you directly to your neighborhood.</p>
<p>You guys are the BEST!</p>
<p>I just emailed my issues to that email address at Zillow, vballmom. WE shall see if and how they answer me.</p>
<p>Kleibo, Chase’s Estimator values the house EXACTLY where I would expect to be- at more that 2x what Zillow shows! It is the right per sq ft number. (And a happy number for re-sale some day, I hope!)</p>
<p>momsquad, Trulia values it higher than Zillow, but still below what would be considered market value and Chase.</p>
<p>THANKS SO MUCH- I knew there would be helpers on CC!</p>
<p>Chase estimated our house to be larger than it is & the estimate of resale value is $15,000 cheaper than Zillow.</p>
<p>Chase is about the same as assessed value, as is Trulia.</p>
<p>Zillow estimate shows our house area as 1 sq. ft., the arrow located the house in the middle of a lake, it only lists 1/2 of the land area. I don’t think they had one fact correct; from roof materials, to # of rooms, heating system, date built etc. So how could their estimated values be close to accurate. It is annoying though!</p>
<p>The data about the house can be corrected by you easily on Zillow, updated regularly, if I am not mistaken.
The data on my house IS correct, has always been, so that is not an explanation of the mis-valuation…</p>
<p>I’m not going to update or correct Zillow information; see Oregon101’s comment #9; I think our county checks Zillow for tax purposes. When we refinanced a year ago, we had an appraiser who, inspite of visiting our property, seemed to get all of his facts from Zillow, right down to the wrong land area square footage. As for Performersmom’s mis-evaluation; perhaps Zillow works like USNWR rankings and has to change all the time to pique our interest in their website.</p>
<p>kleibo that site had my home valued at $317k but my neighbor with the same house at $371,000. There are only two differences in our homes- I purchased mine for $170,000 and he purchased his years later for $430,000. The second difference is he has a small built in pool. My understanding is that a built in pool will not increase a home sale price any where near $50,000.
He is on the market with a listing price of $414,000.</p>
<p>Even professional appraisers can screw up on their appraisals, there are factors that are pretty subjective, like, ‘how desireable is an area’ or "does the house stand out from others in the area (like a mansion in a community of bungalows) and the like. They often are using outdated information, if you have a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house that was renovated to have a new kitchen, 2 more bedrooms, etc, often these places base it on what the house was…they also tend to base some of their information on ‘trends in the area’, so a surrounding town that had overbuilt and wasn’t so desireable could affect their valuation of yours and so forth. It can also be tough, if some houses sold in your town as a fire sale, and there aren’t a lot of sales in general, (for example, banks dumping foreclosed houses at auction), it can spike the price down, when they represent abherations (for example, in the last 6 months, 4 houses have sold, three of them short sales at let’s say 150k, 1 at full market at 375…want to see what the valuation on houses looks like…).</p>
<p>The only real way to tell is look for real estate transfers in your town and look who is selling the house as well. If it is being sold by a bank the price may be suspect, but look at what is selling in your area over a period of months. In my area the local rag lists re-estate transfers, but such information is public record.</p>
<p>Tom1944…what is the prop tax on a 400,000 house in NJ? I realize there is a range depending on where you live in NJ…so what is the range?</p>
<p>Chase had the other 5 homes on my short street listed, but mine says it’s not available. All built within 2 years of each other, 20 years ago. ??</p>
<p>Trulia lost a bedroom and bath, had veneer instead of brick, size was high, and the price for the neighborhood was off (based on recently sold property).</p>
<p>Zillow is way off on the prices, says my home is multi-family (well, only if we have to start renting out the kids’ rooms to pay off college loans), lost 2 bedrooms but added a bath. I’ve checked Zillow before and it’s always been wrong.</p>
<p>Since we’re not planning on leaving in the next 5 years, I don’t really care what it says.</p>
<p>dstark- in my town a $400,000 house pays about $8200- 9000 in property tax</p>
<p>If you want to know what your house is worth pay $500 and find out from a local pro.</p>
<p>barron I agree.</p>
<p>Off topic Barrons but word is that Rutgers is going to sign a large number of the top NJ high school football players this year.</p>
<p>Just in case you missed it, I am NOT looking for a valuation from Zillow. I just fear that others will rely on or trust it.</p>
<p>Reviews are crapping all over Zillow, but their software is crappier than the company itself - it says, $274,000 plus 3% (AND it says, the 3% is $8000.00, but this) takes the house value to $276,000! </p>
<p>LOL!!! I have been following Zillow’s website for over a year now - it is BUGGY AS HELL!!! Great job, guys!!!</p>
<p>Who did they outsource their company’s website maintenance to, I wonder…to some nincompoop Company across the globe that is laughing all the way to the bank with their $$$$$$s??? Is the FTC sleeping at it’s desk?</p>
<p>AND, you CANNOT get in touch with a human being to ask for their error(s) to be corrected - high time there was a lawsuit filed against them for Product Liability causing irreparable damage to home owners!!! </p>
<p>Any Attorneys out there wanting in on this piece of action?</p>
<p>No one takes Zillow’s estimates seriously. It is useful for facts on file, like the last appraisal, lot size, etc. </p>
<p>I just checked our house. Down $200K over the last year’s estimate–because two other houses in our eclectic neighborhood have not sold and are reducing their prices. (Also discovered that a neighbor is selling her house–I had no idea.) However, we had a professional appraisal done three months ago, and I know quite well that the Zillow estimate is garbage.</p>
<p>I’m really not clear why anyone would care what the Zillow estimate is. It’s irrelevant to actual purchase or financing.</p>
<p>I just recieved our property tax assessment, which is $9,000 less than last year.
I’m sure we could sell it for that, even if it meant someone would have to clean out the basement.
:eek:
Zillow price is on last years assessment, which isn’t that far off.</p>
<p>We have had several houses sell on our street in the last year ( & the house on the corner has a pending sale, but the owners just moved in? They couldn’t be trying to flip it because all they did was put on a new roof & paint it).</p>
<p>Zillow also isn’t updated. They show a house that hasn’t existed on Google maps for several years, because an ultra modern behemoth has been built in its place.</p>