Is it a Zestimate, Zappraisal or Zaccurate?
There are a lot of places that give valuations, but how good are those numbers, anyway?
I was at a real estate tech expo last week and they had a speaker from Zillow there. He understood that he wasn’t going to be the favorite speaker to a couple hundred Realtors. He was pretty good. He invited feedback and explained that Zillow is intended to start the conversation on value, not to set values.
Their algorithm is complex, he couldn’t answer exactly how they get the Zestimate.
He did make it plain that it is a Zestimate, not a Zappraisal or Zaccurate!
At the bottom of zillow.com there is a button “About Zestimates” that takes you to charts of how far off the Zestimate is, historically, for different areas.
Looking at the tri-county area around us, not great. No surprise to me. The median for Sarasota county is off by 10%, high and low. That is a median range of 20% off, but that is median, not average.
Some
other categories show that just over half of the time are they within 20% of
the sales price. From 20% high to 20% low, that is a range of 40% off of actual price. Big range.
That range is probably pretty close for an average. The properties I actually have checked because of people using the Zestimate to justify their actions was a range of 40-60% low. Although I have seen Zestimates that looked too high. Just like the county tax data, a place to start a conversation about value, but certainly not the end-all that would make life easier!
Respectfully,
Jim Sweat, ABR, CRS, CDPE, GRI, e-PRO, ILHM
REALTOR
Sandals Realty
Mobile: 941-306-7384
Fax: 941-552-6039
mailto:florida@jimandmarci.com
A Proven Professional Working for You!
16 Years Experience
Comments
For people are either too smart, too stupid or just plain broke. Which makes Zestimate as close to human nature unreal and only at best a guess.
The other part of the equation is that if a buyer (or seller) likes what the data source says, then it is great info! If it doesn't support their objective, then it isn't very good data.
Human nature!
All the Best,
Jim Sweat