I think agents should get defensive, especially when what Hash describes- ‘increase the value to the seller/buyer by decreasing their costs and making it easier to find and buy property’ – becomes a reality. Agents and their brokers have done their best to keep the information they access to themselves and now (and this started with Zillow) that it’s being made accessible, they’re beginning to feel the heat. To barrow from your middle man analogy, we need the lawyers and doctors, but by educating ourselves we become empowered to question those who we’re given lots and lots of money to. That’s not to say web 2.0 cannot co-exist . Over at http://www.neighborcity.com we use an algorithm to help weed out the best agent for each of our clients. There is no selling to the highest bidder, or auctioning off of clients. Our goal, (not unlike trulia or movoto) is to arm out clients with the information they need to make educated decisions and I think you’ll see the best agents reaping the benefits of the more savvy consumer.

Who doesn’t have remodeling and home improvements that are waiting to be done? We all do and here we will try and assist you in getting the job done….

Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future…

This is Bryan from Zillow and as a mac user I understand the frustration that we don’t currently support Safari. Every effort is being made to add support in the near future.

The current version of Safari is missing some key functionality which the Zillow.com application relies upon. For more details on the subject please reference: http://www.zill...ri_support.html

An opening page instructs Mac users to download software for another browser to view the site. Who in their right mind would download 3rd party software for an inferior browser just to view one website?

This lack of technical savvy leads me to question the accuracy and integrity of Zillow’s content, especially when similar information is available on ABC and other Mac compatible websites. Even my local newspaper’s website provides real estate closing prices by address for the past 6 years.

Bill

For those areas where we do have very accurate data, and provided that county records have all the home data correct, our Zestimates can be surprisingly good. The Denver, CO area for instance has a median error of 4.7% with 78% of the homes sold were within 10% of our calculation. This tells you that if we provide you a Zestimate for that area that seems close then it is probably quite accurate. Of course you will be able to find exceptions, so if that home you bought for $100,000 last week is now worth $700,000 by our Zestimate, then you might want to consider that this is one of those times we got it wrong.

The Zillow Zestimate is a starting point. If only to say if you look on Zillow the Zestimate is X, but what Zillow doesn’t know about this home makes it actually worth Y. You can use the My Zestimator as a worksheet to justify whatever you percieve the actual value to be, and to document how those additions impact the overall value of the property. The owner of a house can use the same feature as a what-if worksheet to see what a kitchen remodel would do for the value of the home they are considering selling.

If we’re doing things right, and we realize we still have our work cut out for us, Zillow is a tool that Sellers, Buyers, Owners, and other real estate professionals can use and each will find some value in the product. For the Sellers and Buyers, there is the obvious valuation aspect of the site. For agents, we offer this as a way to improve the number of transactions a year that you can have. If you increase your transactions, you can lower your commission and seperate yourself from your competition. We hope you will direct your clients to Zillow to familiarize themselves with an area and to begin to educate themselves on what they are looking for before you invest too much of your time pursuing cold leads.

If on the other hand, you are an agent who has 4-5 transactions a year, you may start to feel a pinch in your wallet, indirectly because of Zillow and other online real estate services, but Zillow isn’t really the root cause; it is the other agents who have figured out that the real estate market is changing and openly embrace the newer tools available to them. Some areas we have data but for others we are still trying to gather it. You can always check how accurate we are in an area by consulting our Data Coverage and Zestimate Accuracy page: http://www.zill...imateAccuracy.z .

We aren’t done with Zillow by any stretch of the imagination. Just yesterday for instance, we added a 45 degree “Bird’s Eye” feature to the site which we hope will give people a better sense of a neighborhood than the satellite overhead view was able to provide. Since we launched, we’ve added an additional ~5 million homes to the site. We still consider this a beta product but we hope that people will find our “work in progress” a valuable asset.

Kristin, as a real estate professional, I encourage you to sign up on our site http://www.zill...roviderSignup.z . We are constantly looking for ways to improve our offerings and fully value any constructive criticism you might have. While Zillow might be creating and designing the website, http://www.Zillow.com actually belongs to the Real Estate community.

On the one I sold:
Zillow estimated 1.5% less than the sale price. Keep in mind that the old house had a basement finished recently that was not included in the estimate. RealEstateABC could not provide an estimate

On the one I bought:
Zillow was right on the sale price
RealEstateABC estimated higher than what I paid, by 10% – which was actually the 1% higher than the originally listed price

And, I never came across neither of these sites when I was negotiating on either of the houses. I used these sites after the fact.

I think Zillow is right on the money – atleast in the Chicago suburbs.

Thanks

Before you get so hung up on value, value, value, don’t forget market trends and local area risks. Is $300K a good deal if you have comps around $300K? Probably not if the market is going down and not if there is foreclosure activity in the area.
http://www.home...martreports.com has that information in addition to value estimates. You pay a little for it, but it is important for you to know.

The Zillow and Real Estate ABC websites mentioned above likely use Automated Valuation Modeling (AVM) or some statistical/mathematical methodology to generate their values and they are very new to the game. Most companies in this business have spent a decade or more refining their models in the mortgage industry. One of the critical features of AVM is that it objectively analyzes the data and finds properties most comparable to the subject property being valued, prior to using them in the value estimate. If the models allow you to manipulate the results (adding your subjective input), their purpose is defeated because all objectivity is lost. You have changed the result to suit yourself.

There are three important components to understanding value; the valuation itself, market trends and local area risks. You should understand all of them. If you don’t, it could cost you thousands or tens of thousands. Check out http://www.home...martreports.com.

Caution – shameless promotion — have you checked out our site — http://www.movoto.com? We’re on the path to creating the combination of search and home valuation, but we’re just in the California Bay Area for now.