Home Values

[ronin]

Since I am not selling, I guess it doesn't matter, and it's only Zillow estimates, but since the beginning of the year my home is up 14.2%. That is a lot regardless.

 

[Jack_Pine]

Since I am not selling, I guess it doesn't matter, and it's only Zillow estimates, but since the beginning of the year my home is up 14.2%. That is a lot regardless.

Part of country?

 

[timo2]

To gauge the internet price of my home, I use a statistical median of several sites in addition to Zillow. Trulia.com, chase.com, homes .com are the main ones. They are all over the place, but the median is about what an average house is selling for in my neighborhood right now. Of course, my house is above average

 

[JOHNNIE36]

That's something I have been watching for some time now as our home just went on the market. I love our home and could have been very happy just staying here, but my wife thinks differently. She has wanted something that would be maintenance free should something happen to me. Not that I'm the "Mr. Fixit" type around here, but I do all the calling when something goes awry or planning that has to go into the repair. Also, she would be worried about the funding for such things. All that just befuddles her. So, we purchased an attached villa yesterday and now can't wait to get the whole process completed. Everything would be cared for where we bought. Part of that process is selling our current home. Prices are up in our area and people are jumping ahead of other buyers as prime listings are slim. We're hoping to recover our initial investment, plus upgrades and if there is any profit on top of that, we'll take it.

 

[ronin]

Part of country?

east el lay county, ca

 

[Jack_Pine]

east el lay county, ca

Around here, Chicago area, they are going up very slow. In 2 years, welling the house is a the first step in the retirement plan. Nervous about that, hope things improve, like what you are seeing.

 

[W2R]

According to Zillow, housing prices here have gone up 6% in the past year.

I don't know if that is correct or not, or what it means.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

These house price sites can be all over the map. I would take them with a grain of salt. I have seen houses sell for half or one third what they said on the sites. Of course sometimes they are spot on.

 

[ABQ2015]

Zillow lists the home across the street from mine as being sold for $45K more than the actual selling price. The house was sold last September. Zillow also estimates that comparable houses on my block are worth $100K less than the house that sold. I live in an older, downtown neighborhood that does not have many home sales and we are surrounded by less desirable neighborhoods. I thought homes.com did a better job of pricing although the website provided less information on the individual houses.

 

[38Chevy454]

I think it is good for general knowledge. It may even help make you feel better, but just like any investment, all that really matters is what you paid when you bought it, and what you sold for. The difference is what counts. Not all the up and down in-between.

 

[Amethyst]

I know you aren't selling; still, many reputable real estate agents are glad to come out and provide a current market estimate of what your house will sell for in current and fixed-up condition, on the off chance you will sell it eventually, and will remember them.

Amethyst

 

[braumeister]

Zillow, Trulia, etc. are useless for me, since there is nothing remotely comparable in the area. An extremely eclectic neighborhood, with homes within ¼ mile of me worth anywhere between $60K and nearly $2M.

I imagine these sites would be great for cookie-cutter subdivisions, but not here.

 

[aja8888]

Zillow lists the home across the street from mine as being sold for $45K more than the actual selling price. The house was sold last September. Zillow also estimates that comparable houses on my block are worth $100K less than the house that sold. I live in an older, downtown neighborhood that does not have many home sales and we are surrounded by less desirable neighborhoods. I thought homes.com did a better job of pricing although the website provided less information on the individual houses.

I don't know where Zillow gets their data, but it is generally way off the mark. This is a very worthless website (I can't call it a service since it is so flawed).

 

[Amethyst]

+10.

Amethyst

Zillow, Trulia, etc. are useless for me, since there is nothing remotely comparable in the area. An extremely eclectic neighborhood, with homes within ¼ mile of me worth anywhere between $60K and nearly $2M.

I imagine these sites would be great for cookie-cutter subdivisions, but not here.

 

[SVHoper]

The Zillow median or zip code value seems to be a pretty good indicator of 4 CA areas I watch. I "calibrate" the house of interest to one of these and the comparable sales seem to support Zillow.

The individual house prices are so noisy they are worthless.

In one other area where I am interested in buying, Zillow seems to be consistently low by 25%. I was thinking that part of that may be that for an individual house I have to look at the individual price and we are just coming in to Spring when most comparables will be sold to "reset" values. Also the number of sales over winter in this area was minimal.

I find Trulia long term trends relative to 2008-2009 pricing to be very interesting.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

To quote aja8888, where do these guys (trulia and zillow, etc.) get their info? Example, house next door to me is listed at $238K. Has never had anything done to it in the way of upgrades. Inside it looks just like it did in 1991. We just put ours on the market at $325K. Completely renovated. We've put about 75K into so how could Trulia and Zillow even compare these properties? Maybe I don't know the basis for their values but there is a lot they don't know. They could easily be off $75-100K.

 

[SVHoper]

I am guessing that theoretically, $75k improvement performed under a permit should eventually trickle into Zillow underlying data.

However, in reality I don't expect all improvements to be done under permit and why, in reality it is so noisy and wrong for individual houses.... but OK for medians and trends when there are enough sales.

 

[aja8888]

DD lives in an established, low price, but nice neighborhood. And in Texas, sales of residential properties are not public information. She bought her 2000 square foot home 2.5 years ago for $127,000. Last Zillow estimate (one week ago) for it was $234,113! House down the street which is 600 square feet bigger is listed for $199,000. Go figure.

 

[utrecht]

My house is listed on Zillow as having 3 bedrooms. It has 4 bedrooms. The County Tax appraiser website, which is public record, clearly says it has 4 bedrooms so who knows where Zillow gets its info. Its obviously not very accurate.

 

[Katsmeow]

I don't think Zillow is very accurate.

I remember some years ago, looking up the house I was about to put on the market. I was surprised to see that it ignored other houses (similar) in the same gated subdivision as comps to come up a value and instead used houses from many miles away in a low income neighborhood. Just made me go hmm.

I just looked up our current house and it shows our house going up almost about 30% in value since 1/2013. There seems no apparent reason for this. I do think that sales are up so I could see some increase in value. But this just seems to be out of whack.

 

[Fishingmn]

Zillow does publish their accuracy data - Data Coverage and Zestimate Accuracy - Zillow

As you can see, they admit they have a median error of 5-9% in most markets and are not within even 10% of the actual sales price about 30-40% of the time.

As a Realtor I get the "zestimate" question quite often but it's pretty easy to refute zillow as a true valuation using their own published data.

 

[zedd]

Referencing zillow for home values is like asking your barber if he thinks you need a haircut.

Apologies to Warren Buffet

 

[Tom52]

I think the prices you see on Zillow are pretty much based upon the property taxes you pay, (assessed valuation). I can use my existing house as example. About 5 years ago I found out that I was paying significantly more in property taxes compared to neighbors and Zillow showed my house valued above all other similar houses within several blocks.

I protested my taxes with the township and was given a reduced valuation which resulted in lower property taxes for a couple of years. The reduction in taxes was about 15%. Not surprisingly, the value of my house according to Zillow dropped below the value of my neighbors with similar houses.

Then about 2 years ago the township came back in and "re-assessed" my property and the taxes went back up even higher than the previous levels. A recent check on Zillow shows my house is again worth significantly more than my neighbors with similar houses.

While Zillow leads you to belive they have some sort of magic foo foo dust formula to establish house values, I believe value is primarily base it on the assessed valuation.

 

[imoldernu]

Would be interesting to see the algorithms that Zillow uses. I used to think that the estimates varied by sales area, or county, or metro statistics, but after checking the same houses for a period of time, there doesn't seem to be a correlation. Our own home Zillow estimate has changed in value by 20% to 30% both up and down four times from a year ago, but that change does not apply to homes in the same area, just a mile or two away.
We did notice a huge drop in our estimated value after a home in our retirement community was sold (basically given away) by the heirs. This changed by almost the same amount when another nearby home sold for the "going" price a few months later.
Hard to believe that estimates could be micromanaged at the neighborhood level.
Siince Zillow or similar sites are being used increasingly for estimates, are we coming to a point where buying and selling houses could approach the advice given by Kelly Blue Book or Edmunds for car prices?

While the actual asking and sales prices are noted for "listings"... the estimates for houses that are not for sale now, will have historical estimated prices in the history chart.

On the one hand, I can see benefit for those looking to buy in a location that they are familiar with, but in cases where people are making major relocations,
and are limited in the time available to select a home.

This may seem like a non-starter, and that sensible people wouldn't use Zillow as a buying guide, but my own son and DIL are scanning Florida communities using Zillow, and will spend about 2 weeks in looking around on site. Our concern is that some of the communities show artifically high asking prices... limited realtors... limited offerings, while others are more accurate, ie. The Villages.

Not to say that there is a better way, but to realize that when it comes to dollars and cents, not a substitute for being there, and spending time to "know" the territory.

 

[Moemg]

I just checked my home value on Zillow and Trulia . That was good for a morning chuckle . The estimates vary by $200,000 with Trulia being the low ball . Trulia also had a picture of my house which has three stories and next to the picture is the listing that states one story .They also have the age and size of home wrong .