Trulia vs Zillow

[Live And Learn]

the estimated value on my house is 15% lower on Trulia then it is on Zillow. In fact, the Trulia estimate is lower than the low value in Zillow's range. I'm planning on downsizing in the next couple of months and I was wondering how much I "might" get out of the difference in the costs. I'm not talking about large sums of money in any event but it might pay for a nice vacation.

Does anyone have info on Trulia vs Zillow home values and their 'accuracy' ?

 

[TrvlBug]

Interesting, my home's value is 15% higher on Trulia than Zillow's mid-range estimate. Go figure.

 

[bob boag]

I guestimate my home value with the average of these four:

Find Home Values, Property Estimates, Mortgage Rates, and Real Estate Listings

Home Values & Homes Sold Prices | HOMES.com

Real Estate, Homes for Sale, Recent Sales, Apartment Rentals - Zillow

https://www.chase.com/online/Home-Lending/home-value-estimator.htm

In my case they're all within $20K of each other. I had never heard of Trulia - it's a huge outlier relative to these other four; $75K higher than their average.

 

[Midpack]

Our estimates were within $900, Trulia reported assessed value and Zillow reported a Zestimate. I thought homes usually sold for more than assessed value?

Both sites have some of the details wrong...

 

[bondi688]

Trulia way-overestimated the price of one of the properties I was looking at, and I did careful comparison in that area and know that Trulia's number was wrong.

 

[heeyy_joe]

Trulia is so bad that they show the wrong side of the street for all the addresses in my neighborhood.

 

[Fishingmn]

Our estimates were within $900, Trulia reported assessed value and Zillow reported a Zestimate. I thought homes usually sold for more than assessed value?

Both sites have some of the details wrong...

Trulia & Zillow are both top 3 real estate websites. Neither of them are particularly accurate.

For example, Zillow actually publishes their accuracy data - Data Coverage and Zestimate Accuracy - Zillow

You can see that in many markets they are within 5% of the actual sale price less than 1/3 of the time with median errors in the 6-10% range. On a $250k house that's a lot of money. While many Realtors are worried about their future impact on the value of using an agent, for now the best accuracy typically comes from an experienced agent doing a Comparative Market Analysis.

As to your question about tax assessed values, I'm sure it can vary by state but in Minnesota your premise about assessed values is wrong. In MN the tax assessed value is supposed to be the fair market value. That said, a home's tax assessed value for 1/1/12 is what is used as the basis for your 2013 property taxes. Since tax value is 12-24 months behind it is a trailing indicator.

In other words, in rising markets the tax assessed value is often less than the fair market value but in declining markets (like the past 4 years) the tax assessed value quite often is higher than the final sale price.

 

[photoguy]

I'm planning on downsizing in the next couple of months and I was wondering how much I "might" get out of the difference in the costs. I'm not talking about large sums of money in any event but it might pay for a nice vacation.

I would use trulia/zillow to find actual comparable sales and estimate the price yourself. The confidence bounds on their estimates are very wide: on my street according to zillow the houses sold for +80k, -10k, -90k, +50k, +73k compared to their estimate at the time of sale (on older SFH houses roughly around 600k, 1000-1200 sqft, within the past year or two).

 

[Tyro]

Trulia & Zillow are both top 3 real estate websites. Neither of them are particularly accurate.

What's the third?

I would have thought all these sites use some sort of algorithm involving available data on a home from its most recent listing, assessed value, and comparative market value. We've had comparative market values by different Realtors vary by as much as 15% on previous homes, so that may account for some of the discrepancies (SWAG).

I think most states now assess at full market value, but I don't know for sure, or which ones do/don't. We've fought with assessors (appealed assessed values) a few times in the past, and usually won something.

Tyro

 

[check6]

None are accurate. Zillow had a home I was interested @ $307,584 and it sold yesterday for $368,000.

Home down the street from mine, exactly the same model is estimated @ $15,000 more when mine by far has the most dramatic views of the mountains.

 

[clifp]

While none are accurate I think that overall they do at least as good as job as broker,and perhaps as good as county appraiser.

Here is the estimate for my 3 properties in Vegas and my house in Honolulu from the two services
Trulia, 66,000 78,000, 94,000 798,00
Zillow 80,800 70,500 99,900, 842.500

My estimates are 67,000 78,000 101,000 832,000

 

[Fishingmn]

What's the third?

Realtor.com

 

[JoeWras]

They are within 3% of each other in my case. From what I see in the neighborhood, they are probably a tiny bit high, by maybe a few percent.

That's pretty good all things considered.

 

[donheff]

In my area they miss the important individual features as does the assessor. Trulia has me about $50k higher which is probably closer to the real value. Both miss that we have a garage and a finished basement.

 

[bld999]

In my area they miss the important individual features as does the assessor. Trulia has me about $50k higher which is probably closer to the real value. Both miss that we have a garage and a finished basement.

I hear all of the automated valuation sites use "public information" as inputs, so if the assessor missed something so has the valuation site, as they just parrot the features described by the county.

fyi, on zillow, I have 2 houses side by side, built 10 years apart with the same size and basic features. zillow says that last month the value of one went up 16k, and the value of the other declined something like 7k.... There were no physical or other changes [except the market] that would have had an influence in that time period.

 

[ducky911]

I think these sites only use the closest sold house and adjust for Sfootage. Works ok in areas of tracts with similar homes. It doesn't work good for fixed up homes, large lots, quite streets and such.

 

[W2R]

Yes, you all are so right about where they get their information and so on.

In our New Orleans inner suburb, Zillow does not have a clue about relative value of an individual home unless that home has been on the market recently. I think the same is true for Trulia. Apparently they just take average sales price for neighborhoods and gradually interpolate them in areas bordering two neighborhoods.

This is because any information about the house other than neighborhood is only available to them when the house is listed. These services do not even know how many bedrooms and baths most houses have here, much less the square footage, unless a given house has been on the market lately.

In many of our neighborhoods, an old, unimproved 1200 square foot $120K house might be located a few houses down from a newer 4500 square foot $600K McMansion with all the bells and whistles. So Zillow results are just silly and a humorous topic, here. I assume the same is true of Trulia prices.

 

[Moemg]

I just checked my house on Truila & Zillow . Both sites had the wrong square footage and Truila 's estimate was $200,000 less and way off target .They did have a lovely picture of my house on Truila .

 

[timo2]

I just checked all the sites mentioned here, [homes.com; tulia.com; realtor.com; eppraisal.com; zillow.com; chase.com] and the average was $216K, and the median $202K, with $106K for the difference between the high and low. So that is quite a variance in these sites.

 

[Live And Learn]

thanks. I tried the other sites mentioned and those estimates made the high / low range even wider. After reading this the one thing I know for sure is that I will know what my home is worth after its sold !

 

[EvrClrx311]

Neighbors house just went on the market last week and is under contract for $440,500. Neither site seems to acknowledge that it was listed for sale, yet.

Trulia estimate - $404,000
Zillow estimate - $441,599

Just one example, but leads me to believe Zillow has better equations at play. At least for our area.


The thing both of these sites really miss on is upgrades and features. Two identical houses side by side could have same sq footage and proximity to 'stuff'... but if one has a deck, patio, gourmet kitchen and finished basement, it could easily sell for $100K more. However, on zillow/trulia they would be listed as identical prices.

 

[Semiretired2008]

A lot of people use them, but I have found errors across the board with values and the data collected by both of the systems.

For example: What Zillow shows for my house is not my house - it took a bit, but I figured out that it was a house on the other side of our housing area. Same with a friend of mines house in Colorado.

 

[Cat-tirement]

I have accounts on both Zillow and Trulia, and identified myself as owner of my house on both so I could enter details. Zillow gives me an estimated value of $198k while Trulia estimates $290k. OTOH, for my recently purchased future retirement home, Zillow says $278k while Trulia says $234k. Somewhat closer, but off in the opposite direction. (My actual purchase price last fall of the latter was higher than the Zillow estimate.) Are these estimates worth anything?

 

[frank2009]

This thread was an eye opener. Estimates for my house varied by 100K. These automated estimators have a ways to go before they can be even close to be trusted.

 

[braumeister]

I think the big problem with these sites is that a neighborhood has to be fairly homogeneous in order for them to do good comparisons.

I live in an extremely diverse area (my next door neighbor's house is easily worth 8X what mine is worth by anyone's measurement).

But even with that consideration, the Trulia and Zillow estimates for my house are only about 5% apart, and probably 25% lower than what I could actually get for it.

Their estimates for the aforesaid neighbor are about 40% apart, and way lower than what he could get for it. That shows what an outlier his house is (easily the most expensive place within 6-8 miles).

Happily, neither of us is likely to move in the near future.