<p>I just looked our home up on Zillows and I am beginning to wish that our property tax calculations people would outsource to them!!! </p>
<p>What we have found interesting the last few years is that each time our house’s tax value drops by $100,000, they increase the value of the land buy the same amount.</p>
<p>Zillow IS crap. They show 3 (!!) foreclosure properties not far from my house, but the pictures and description of the property are identical. :)</p>
<p>The house across the street just came on the market. The listing price is 4 million above the Zillow estimate.</p>
<p>What you might want to do is get the assessor’s listing for your home, and make sure that the house has the correct number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Both the appraiser and the RE agents we interviewed (in CA) said that they were not allowed to appraise/list the home with more bedrooms or bathrooms than the assessor’s listing showed. Ours were fine since everything was as originally built, but apparently it is a significant issue with a lot of older houses.</p>
<p>So what did happen? Did any attorneys put their hand up? Just curious, even though no recent posts on this thread</p>
<p>One potential buyer for the house we sold two years ago quoted Zillow to defend their minus $50K off list price. When we countered with the full list price their agent said we were being unreasonable. Tough cookies. We contracted with another buyer a month later at minus $4K off the list price. The sale went through as agreed, but only after steadfastly refusing late stage large money demands. </p>
<p>Best advice: As a seller be reasonable, but do not put yourself in a position that you can not afford to walk away from the games played by late stage game playing buyers.</p>
<p>When I have to estimate the value of a house, which I do 100’s a week in a target area of 50 miles in radius, when I am in a buying mode. I have to first input the value of Zillow, Trulia, Redfin and RPR(another internet version used by MLS), the average gives me a reference point to start. From there, I zero in and pick the house I want to see and visit. After I visited the house, I list all the currently listed, pending and sold properties in half mile radius of the target and make a decision of pricing before I place a bid.</p>
<p>For whatever the reason, Zillow is more or less accurate in the target areas I frequent. With an error rate of ±15 %.</p>
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<p>Wrong. When we were looking to borrow money, the bank official explicitly stated that they had used Zillow value to determine collateral value of the house.</p>
<p>Just took a look and Zillow lists our recently sold property in California at over 40,000 under what it sold for. It closed last week. I think Zillow is interesting, but I don’t trust it. The prices bob up and down willy nilly from one month to the next.</p>
<p>My house fluctuates every month up a thousand down a thousand. It’s pretty much on par with my recent home appraisal… maybe a few thousand less on Zillow then what it was appraised at. That being said, i have a friend whose house is easily worth 500-750k and on zillow its listed at like 325. Some of them are bizarre.</p>
<p>Zillow doesn’t have any information correct on our house. I wouldn’t trust an estimate on that site to mean much.</p>
<p>We live in a neighborhood of a little over 100 homes that are 15-20 years old. Most of the recent sales have been homes in original condition that the new owners have renovated, spending 1/4 to 1/3 of the purchase price of the home. Zillow has no way of accounting for that until the house is sold down the line. The few renovated homes that have sold have fetched a good price, but don’t seem to factor too much in the Zestimates in the neighborhood. We have had 4 short sales that seem to have had a greater effect on the Zestimates. 4 of the 6 homes in our cul-de-sac are undervalued by $75,000-$100,000 on Zillow.</p>
<p>I saw a house in our area that was on zillow for $1MM less than it sold for!</p>
<p>Zillow lists my house at 75% of what it most recently appraised at. What our house appraised at was comparable with all the other houses in the neighborhood, which have sold similarly and have been for the last year at least since I’ve been watching the market here. It has the number of bedrooms wrong and thinks it most recently sold in 1989 for 46% of what it ACTUALLY most recently sold at three months ago… around here zillow is pretty laughable. We actually almost didn’t go see our house because the listing was only on Zillow, and with zillow god only knows whether or not the house is really even for sale.</p>
<p>Spammers resurrecting the old thread… ;)</p>
<p>^^yes, but it just triggered me to go spend a fascinating 20 minutes looking at all the houses for sale in my neighborhood. I had been wondering what they are listed for, but most don’t have flyers and I haven’t gotten around to looking them up. If my neighbor across the street’s house sells for the $687K she has listed it for, I will eat her yappy little dog! And list mine for a lot more than I planned to when I put it on the market sometime next year!</p>
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<p>I have worked in the mortgage industry for several banks, and can’t imagine a reputable institution using anything except an appraisal for this purpose. </p>
<p>I have been trying to sell a house. The zillow estimate, the realtor’s estimate and it looks like the sale price were within 5% of each other.</p>
<p>This thread is more than 2 years old, I think. It is quite possible that Zillow came up with better algorithms to estimate RE values (otherwise, they would have bit the dot com dust by now). Of course, somewhat stabilized housing prices helped, too. </p>
<p>Start a new thread, don’t respond to the spammer with $ to be made.</p>
<p>Dragonmom, that “Steve” is possibly a zillow marketing person. The phone # and email are Zillow contact numbers. Someone is doing belated damage control! ;)</p>