How realistic do you think Zillow home price estimates are?
 

Do you think the Zillow home estimate is even close to the value of your home?

Interesting post..some you tube videos from agents have stated Zillow estimates way off esp in the FSBO category.

I do not believe they are very accurate. They have no idea of what the inside of the home looks like.

I would think there would be huge variations in Zillow's accuracy, but from my limited experience, it's been a reasonable, very general, estimate of a home's price range.

A good ESTIMATE.


Usually the details inside are gross. Personal preferences and don't add to the value.


Zillow just uses cost per SF in an area.

Zillow compares prices of sold homes in the general area of your home. I don't believe they take into account the different styles of homes, square footage. or lot size. They don't know if your home is 100% better or less than those sold because it's all done with computer models. That's my humble opinion.

LOL! The villages market analysis put our home at $409,000 but the Zillow Zestimate is $328,000.
NOTE: Zillow is wack!

ugly wallpaper kills value every time.

What is villages market analysis???

I saw our home value change +/-$50,000 over a month or so period. I was watching the house across the street that was not selling. Could not believe a $100,000 difference is such a short period of time, so IMHO, Zillow is not very accurate...........

The Zillow estimate for my house is about 5 percent too high. But, I am a little suspicious of the independence of Zillow. Last year, a house on my street was listed by an outside Realtor. The asking price was more than $100K above the Zillow estimate. Within a week of the house being listed, the Zillow estimate increased by almost $100K. I just wonder how that happened.

Zillow uses Selling Price in their model.


Too much work for Zillow to use Sales Price.

Tell The Villages you are thinking about selling. They will send in a SWAT Team and give you a price.

Depends on if you are buying or selling. If selling, I am hoping they are very accurate. :-)

According to a Forbes report, Zillow estimates are within about 1.9 percent of the selling price, when comparing sales prices to the Zillow estimate.

New Zillow Zestimate Accuracy

My house estimated value is $100,000 less than one across the street. Approx. same size house. I have a 10x20 in ground heated pool and 80ft on a championship golf course.

If I would like to sell my house and someone looks at Zillow, I would not be able to sell it.

Something very wrong that they can print such false statements.

I believe everyone's life experience with Zillow. Why wouldn't I? My experience in other place were so out of line that I would have classified them as FAKE News.

In Florida from my experience so far they are much more of a valuable gauge of the value of a home. I am hopeful that their evaluation of the homes within a half mile of mine continue their upward trend. Manufactured Homes are Red Hot now.

Wanna make a killing on a house? Buy at the correct price going in and going out will be much less stressful. Best of luck from Carlton Sheets & Dave Del Dotto! It's been many moons since these guys were on TV constantly and a whole lot of what they taught was shifty. Not all of it. I wonder if they are out of jail yet? These guys are a walk down memory lane and I like it big time.

I like Realtor.com who may be tied in with Zillow and Trulia somehow nowadays.

:popcorn: Does The Villages limit the amount of rentals a Family or Person can have? :popcorn:

You may want to go to Zillow.com and update your house facts. Even if they are currently accurate, they may review it and change the Zillow estimate.

Personally, I trust the Zillow estimates way more so than the listing price or what Realtors say. If a house has a Zillow estimate that is much higher than the listed price, I won't even waste my time to view it. I also use the county website to see what the seller paid for the house, when it was sold, and what upgrades were made.

Depends on whose home you're talking about. The home that Zillow hasn't updated in over 10 years? Or the home that Zillow updated yesterday?

Actually the answer to both is "unreliable data."

You can't always update the information, especially if you don't have a Zillow account or are a licensed realtor. They get some of their data from the MLS service which laymen can't update.

I know of a new home that was valued at less than the original selling price. My assumption is that Zillo looks at similar homes to come up with a price. The problem was the home had a lot of modifications including solar electric that was not reflected in the estimated price.

Many sellers and seller's realtors oftentimes suggest Zillow is wrong. I don't work at Zillow but my guess is they are much closer to actual value than most people would like to admit. Their algorithms get better with time and with more data (sales). If you assume there are smart people at Zillow then they are probably looking at the same things the smart people on this forum would look at to define value (tax assessments, actual sales, etc.). The only difference is they are trying to assess values of thousands to millions of homes (algorithmically) while we get to do it for a specific house empirically.

I don't trust Zillow implicitly but I do think it does provide a good estimate for most homes. Yes, there are outliers but those outliers are not always the house that we own.:icon_wink:

I have never sued anyone in my life, and am generally against doing so. However, I can not believe that someone hasn't filed a class action lawsuit against Zillow, for publishing false information.

Wrong. If you are the owner of the house, can update information and report inaccurate information anytime you want. You just need to verify that you own the house. Yes, it is up to Zillow to correct inaccurate information, but you can put them on notice when their information is inaccurate. They have a section on their website specifically for that purpose.

Right. That's what I said. YOU - the homeowner - personally - cannot cause the information to be updated. Only Zillow can do that. You can submit a request for an update, but you are not able to do the update yourself.

They had a couple of homes in my old neighborhood valued at -much- more than their actual value, plus they never changed the flag on our property to indicate that it was for sale.

It had us as the original owner - it was built in 1955 and neither of us were born then so yeah - no we weren't the original owner.

It indicated we had a built-in pool - we don't, and never did. But they got that information from the tax assessor in town, which had the information wrong 10 years ago and corrected that 8 years ago when we complained we were paying too much tax as a result.

It had a lot of information incorrect, included information that shouldn't have been there at all, and was missing information that should have been there (such as our full basement, which was a pretty big deal in a neighborhood that was predominately cape homes on cement slab foundations).

Zillow is not reliable, commonly inaccurate, and untrustworthy. That's on a good day.

I trust Zillow more than The Villages agents. A Villages agent recently showed me a house with the sales pitch that the owner could not make profit because she had purchased the house new only 6 months ago. That is false. I asked the agent why the house was priced at $100K over what the owner had paid 6 months ago and what the Zillow estimate was for the house. She said that the owner had included the 6 percent sales commission and the cost for all of the upgrades in the price. Any real estate expert knows that the sales commission is paid for by the seller, not the buyer. And, when you upgrade your house, you should not expect to get 100 percent of the upgrade cost back when you sell the house. The Villages is not being honest when they say that they do not allow a profit within one year of buying a new house. Zillow is a good way to gauge the real value of a house.

What good would Zillow's website be if they allowed the homeowner to enter information without verifying the accuracy? It's their website, not the homeowner's. According to the Forbes report, the Zillow information is much better than it was years ago and getting better all the time. For current sales, the Zillow estimate is within about 1.9 percent of the actual sales price. I think that is a pretty good record. I wouldn't call it commonly inaccurate.

I have found zillow to be a very valuable resource. I've sold "average" properties for plus or minus 3% of zillow, which, in many cases, was above realtor "comps", and also sold rehabbed homes much higher than zillow or comps when they had been updated with modern colors and features. In either case, zillow is a great starting point. In the case of your own personal residence, most people over value features that are important to them .. but not potential buyers. Isn't that why many FSBO's are priced over Zillow and sit unsold ? A 15 year old house that hasn;t been touched in that time, will theoretically sell for much less than one that has been painted with current colors, has updated counters and appliances, and newer HVAC etc. The Zestimate figures on average improvements over time. At the same time, certain features that you have found valuable might not be worth as much as you paid for them .. eg someone might love your house, but consider your pool, summer kitchen or your kissing lanai to be negatives or deal breakers. So, IMO Zillow is a great place to start your objective valuation.

My wife and I have bought and sold many homes in our life, and it must be the same the whole world over.
The one thing we always found, is that if your house is well presented, and you get no offers, you are asking to much, whatever online websites, or realtors say.
The other thing we learnt, was if a place is perfect, so is the price.
Buy the less than perfect, if possible the more less than perfect, and then you have all the profit!

Sometimes I think the Villages realtors discuss what they are going to set prices at. I think they all list the houses high for the most part. Most patio villas are coming on at 210,000 and 220,000. For a patio villa! I think the prices went higher on a patio villa than other models. Just my opinion.

It’s different here in the Villages. Seeing that the homes are “cookie cutter” styles the difference in pricing that comes into play is location, block and stucco verses vinyl siding, views, pools, golf cart garages, granite, tile verses carpet.
The newer home’s being built here in my opinion only, are being built closer together, have shorter driveways, along with the bonds, no squares and not enough amenities to support easy accessibility for the homeowners to enjoy with more than 60,000 new homes being added. That being said people who love the trails and quiet layer back lifestyle suits their needs.
Been in real estate for over 35 years, experience shows that location will always be the major factor in pricing.

Try Chase banks home value finder. I would go by that.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect that Zillow estimates are high because they want to encourage people to sell their houses to get their hands on that supposed equity. In my past dealings with realtors, they always told me my house was worth more than it eventually sold for. They made silly comments like “I can get you TOP DOLLAR!”

I guess I’m just a suspicious person and I tend to question people’s motives. For instance, how does Zillow benefit from their service? They certainly don’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts.

Zillow
 

I think everyone in TV lists selling price by model type. I find it strange that a “Bond Paid” has the same listing price and up grade such as granite doesn’t increase the value. In TV the only thing that I can see changes the listing price of the same model home is location, location, location!

The way houses are priced in The Villages is not much different from anywhere else. But, Zillow has changed a lot by becoming more prominent in the real estate market. Real estate agents and other people selling their homes are using Zillow for sales and marketing purposes much more so than years ago. Some people will actually buy a house by viewing it online and not even visiting the house. I think Zillow benefits by being as accurate as possible with their estimates and other information.

From very recent, personal experience (on going) I can say that if the house has not had a recent sale, or has undergone any extensive renovation, the Zillow estimate is not accurate since it seems to be based on last sale and tax assessment. In my case, once listed and the info on Zillow it came up about 50%. While on the market, it changes as a function of time/price adjustments and immediately adjusted when "under contract". When the contract fell through (buyer financing), the Zillow estimate adjusted downward, even though the VA appraisal was high. I also followed the Refin estimate and have the same impression. FWIW

You know what they say, Location, Location, Location. Plus you got to do a market value. Even TV have some area’s that don’t have some desirable area’s. Stay with somebody that knows & seen TV. Zillow only sees pictures!

NO. Ask any licensed real estate appraiser.

Actually, all you have to do is put your address in, click on "claim this home as your residence", update the info and the estimate gets updated.