Accuracy of Zillow Home Value

Anonymous · ‎08-15-2015

I'm closing on a property that's costing me $110,000. It appraised for $118,000. I listed the property on my bank's website who monitors the value of homes powered by Zillow. It shows my property is now worth $122,485.00.

bbb925 · ‎08-15-2015

In my experience Zillow isn't accurate. Both my homes were listed on Zillow well below their actual appraised value. One home was listed at $239k and I sold it for $377k. My last one said $184k and I sold it for $250k. Maybe others had a different experience with them but mine wasn't even close.

Anonymous · ‎08-15-2015

By Zillow's own estimates, they're only about 65% accurate. Others report they're barely 50% (accurate. In any case, Zillow tends to lag the market.

Anonymous · ‎08-16-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm closing on a property that's costing me $110,000. It appraised for $118,000. I listed the property on my bank's website who monitors the value of homes powered by Zillow. It shows my property is now worth $122,485.00.

My expereince is that Zillow has been consistently low in the past, however, I just looked up my own house and it seems high now.

Last summer, I was discussing a refi with my current lender and their computerized estimate of my house was 65k less than what Zillow shows now. I do believe prices have improved in my area, but thats much higher than I would expect.

I just checked my USAA account page and they have a home price monitoring tab and it shows what my bank did last year about this time, which is now 20% lower than Zillow.

So after checking my two sites, now I would say, use caution on the Zillow valuation. I would consider the appraisers valuation more accurate.

hth

StartingOver10 · ‎08-16-2015

I have found the Zillow estimates to be inaccurate too. They are high sometimes and sometimes low.

Each of these type of estimates are from automated valuation type formulas (AVM's) and each have a proprietary formula. By design, these formulas generate a value from data around the subject property that may or may not relate to the subject property whatsoever. The AVM's do not take into consideration either condition of your property nor features of your property both of which are critical to developing a market value.

If you are looking to see if you have enough equity to refinance you can have an agent prepare a CMA for you to get an idea of value. Make sure you get an experienced agent or your valuation may not be any more accurate than one generated by an AVM (Zestimate or whatever).

If you are looking for a more accurate valuation, hire an appraiser.

Having said that, any lender you use will not accept a third party appraisal. They hire their own appraisers for any refinance you would attempt through a lender - mainly to protect themselves. You pay for it, but the lender is the client.

DallasLoanGuy · ‎08-16-2015

sometimes accurate. sometimes off a little bit. sometimes way off

= useless

Retired Lender

Revelate · ‎08-16-2015

Just as a fun datapoint.

When I made the offer on my current condo main Zillow number was 355K. 6 weeks later it's now 395K, when none of the comparable properties have sold for more than 345K in the meantime. There is a condo on the market though which is at 465K so maybe that's what skewing it, but I don't know why any reasonable model wouldn't throw that out rather than looking at recent sales data of which there are several.

Pretty goofy.

Anonymous · ‎08-16-2015

Revelate - I dont recall what the appraisal price of your new condo was? - Did it come close to the Zillow estimate?

I know they put a lot of programming and system design effort in the automated appraisal systems, but I would think a person that was actually standing at the property and used other automated systems as well as their own real time efforts would be much more accurate. I know some appraisers may miss the mark on some occasions, but still, an onsite person should be pretty accurate.

Revelate · ‎08-17-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
Revelate - I dont recall what the appraisal price of your new condo was? - Did it come close to the Zillow estimate?

I know they put a lot of programming and system design effort in the automated appraisal systems, but I would think a person that was actually standing at the property and used other automated systems as well as their own real time efforts would be much more accurate. I know some appraisers may miss the mark on some occasions, but still, an onsite person should be pretty accurate.

@Got two different appraisals: one at 340K, other at 345K @ sale price of 345K. Another place in same complex similar original floorplan just went for 340K so figure that's market value for now.

Both under original Zillow number, now Zillow's sorta absurd and don't know why.