Ah Zillow. How I love thee.... let me count the ways...
Then there are all the ways I loathe thee....
Where do I begin?!
Zillow is SO great for so many things. It is great fun searching through all the homes on there for free, soaking in the eye candy of homes we can never afford. Dream and plan for that day "when" we win the lottery! Swoon....
And then. There's reality. Take a look:
This is a screenshot taken from their site, the page titled Data Coverage and Zestimate® Accuracy. You can access it here. This is their own self-assessment for their accuracy on their data. You can see from their own assessment, they are only accurate a SMALL PERCENT of the time!
It actually cracks me up to see their accuracy grade at 4 stars for Cobb County. I am in the middle of selling my house, and for the last 5 years Zillow listed my house Zestimate® between $380-450k!! I thought THAT was cRaZy. Then I listed my house.
It's an older, decent size home in West Cobb, with a nice-sized yard (1.2 acres). I knew once it was updated it could be worth $250-$275k (NOT $380-450k!). As is however, I estimated $200k was fair. We had it appraised and guess what... $211,000. However, a week after I listed it, Zillow changed my Zestimate® to $116k!!! $116,000!!!! I had buyers calling me offering $130k because they thought the Zestimate® WAS AN APPRAISAL!!! I can't tell you how many times I had to send the ACTUAL APPRAISAL by the certified appraiser to show it was appraised at $211,000.
OK, so bottom line. Zillow is F-U-N, fun. That's it. Love it for what it is, a fun toy to play with. But when you need real results, an actual appraisal or a truly available listing to consider... call the professionals. 😉 Please.
- Much Love, Dianne =)
