Have you Zillow’ed your home yet? What Google did for helping people find everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-anything, and Classmates.com did for looking up an old high-school fling, a new website, Zillow.com, intends to do for people trying to locate information on real estate. Just as much information, just as easy, just as fast.
Zillow.com is an attempt to simplify the process of property evaluation by allowing its visitors to type in an address and view the public data for 60 million homes, including recent sales history, comparable properties and even daily appreciation.
How does it work?
The official statement from the company says that their methodology used in calculating a homes value is “secret”. Zillow states that “hundreds of home details feed into the formula and the home characteristics are given different weights according to their influence in a given geography and over a specific period of time.” Important pieces of public information such as sales price of comparable homes, property size, bedroom count, factor into the estimation equation.
All of this information is public information and has been available on-line for some time. Websites such as Domania.com and HouseValues.com also provide similar information to its visitors. However, in order to receive the information, the visitors are required to register and their personal profile is often sold to real estate agents as sales leads. The requested information also takes a few days to arrive. Zillow on the other hand is free and instantaneous. Enter the address of your home or that of your neighbors, and you're instantly privy to a whole heap of data centering on the homes value. That's not even the best part; no salesperson will call and there is no limit on your search.
The problem often associated with attaining information in a blind evaluation is the accuracy of the evaluation. The misassumption that you are able to sell your property for the same price your neighbor sold theirs is highly subjective. It depends on many different points of information. For example, what you may see is as a minor drawback, such as a busy street, a traffic light or distant freeway noise can make a large difference for the potential buyer. Also, a cul-de-sac location for a family with three children or a home with an ocean-view for a family relocating from Wisconsin who just witnessed their first California sunset may hold varying amounts of emotional, unpredictable value.
Zillow has reported that their accuracy in predicting values in the San Diego market are within 10% of the selling price for 71% of the homes. It gives the accuracy at a four-star level. So I put it to the test. After taking 30 Carlsbad homes that had transferred in the last two weeks, (eliminating one outlier property that was off by $450,000), the properties were within an average of $69,000 dollars of their closing value. A property in Old Carlsbad was estimated to be worth $610,000, however it closed at $775,000 10 days ago. Also, a property on the golf course in Aviara with a ‘zestimated’ worth of $1,377,278, closed a few days ago at $920,000. If a buyer would have relied solely on Zillow.com for an estimation, it would have been an expensive error.
Summary
I suggest that you give Zillow.com a try, but remember that the market continues to change regularly. For example, condos and town homes sold well in March-May in 2005 where as now, with a glut of competition, sellers are having trouble. Single family home prices dropped during the end of 2004, then a few months later a new vigor and increased appreciation occurred.
So, have fun looking up the value of your and your neighbor’s home. However, do not be misled into thinking that it is an accurate appraisal of either the property or where the home would sell on the market. Consult several experienced, full-time professionals who concentrate their time to understanding your local dynamic and be sure to get independent market analysis
Zillow.com is an attempt to simplify the process of property evaluation by allowing its visitors to type in an address and view the public data for 60 million homes, including recent sales history, comparable properties and even daily appreciation.
How does it work?
The official statement from the company says that their methodology used in calculating a homes value is “secret”. Zillow states that “hundreds of home details feed into the formula and the home characteristics are given different weights according to their influence in a given geography and over a specific period of time.” Important pieces of public information such as sales price of comparable homes, property size, bedroom count, factor into the estimation equation.
All of this information is public information and has been available on-line for some time. Websites such as Domania.com and HouseValues.com also provide similar information to its visitors. However, in order to receive the information, the visitors are required to register and their personal profile is often sold to real estate agents as sales leads. The requested information also takes a few days to arrive. Zillow on the other hand is free and instantaneous. Enter the address of your home or that of your neighbors, and you're instantly privy to a whole heap of data centering on the homes value. That's not even the best part; no salesperson will call and there is no limit on your search.
The problem often associated with attaining information in a blind evaluation is the accuracy of the evaluation. The misassumption that you are able to sell your property for the same price your neighbor sold theirs is highly subjective. It depends on many different points of information. For example, what you may see is as a minor drawback, such as a busy street, a traffic light or distant freeway noise can make a large difference for the potential buyer. Also, a cul-de-sac location for a family with three children or a home with an ocean-view for a family relocating from Wisconsin who just witnessed their first California sunset may hold varying amounts of emotional, unpredictable value.
Zillow has reported that their accuracy in predicting values in the San Diego market are within 10% of the selling price for 71% of the homes. It gives the accuracy at a four-star level. So I put it to the test. After taking 30 Carlsbad homes that had transferred in the last two weeks, (eliminating one outlier property that was off by $450,000), the properties were within an average of $69,000 dollars of their closing value. A property in Old Carlsbad was estimated to be worth $610,000, however it closed at $775,000 10 days ago. Also, a property on the golf course in Aviara with a ‘zestimated’ worth of $1,377,278, closed a few days ago at $920,000. If a buyer would have relied solely on Zillow.com for an estimation, it would have been an expensive error.
Summary
I suggest that you give Zillow.com a try, but remember that the market continues to change regularly. For example, condos and town homes sold well in March-May in 2005 where as now, with a glut of competition, sellers are having trouble. Single family home prices dropped during the end of 2004, then a few months later a new vigor and increased appreciation occurred.
So, have fun looking up the value of your and your neighbor’s home. However, do not be misled into thinking that it is an accurate appraisal of either the property or where the home would sell on the market. Consult several experienced, full-time professionals who concentrate their time to understanding your local dynamic and be sure to get independent market analysis