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.zillowblog.com/zill.....pport.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.zillow.com/howto/Da.....Accuracy.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.zillow.com/feedback.....erSignup.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.homesmartreports.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.homesmartreports.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.

It just sold for $275,500 on 3/9.

Hmmmm….so much for saving the commission. An uneducated, unrepresented seller would have LOST $32,000 trying to “save” money.

With a 6% commission and selling for $275k, the seller would have MADE $14,000 by using a professional.

I will reply because I think it adds to the discussion of tools being offered like this.

You are following the common misconception that a real estate agent’s value is in having that information.

Until you get into a difficult transaction, it’s easy to see why people feel that way. But referring to agents as “middlemen” (like it is a bad thing) implies that all they do is bring buyers and sellers together. That hasn’t been the case for many years - since laws required agents to represent one party and look out for that party’s best interests. THAT is more like a lawyer or doctor. Now agents aren’t just selling things, they are representing people. BIG DIFFERENCE.

Yes, they are technically “middlemen” but just about ANY profession is a “middleman.” The way it is said about agents is like it’s a bad thing.

Why not cut out the middleman doctor and do the surgury yourself? Why not represent yourself in court? Why not fix your own car, make your own dinner, do your own taxes, replace your own roof…. See my point? All of these people are “middlemen” between a consumer and the service they want completed.

Sales info has been around in the form of public tax records for years. Listings have been available online for years. Anyone can post a free ad in craigslist or on hundreds of unrepresented seller websites. But just because you know what other houses sold for doesn’t mean that you know how your house compares and what to price your house for. But that is just the beginning of selling. And just because you found the house online doesn’t mean that it is a smart investment.

People are controlled by emotion and most of the time, agents are protecting people from themselves. This outmoded idea of agents as shady salespeople has got to be stopped. There’s a big difference between someone who is trying to sell you something and someone who is required by law to represent you and look out for your best interests.

Assuming an EXPERIENCED agent’s value is in showing houses or popping a sign on the lawn is a big mistake. Many agents spend a large part of their time talking people out of buying the WRONG house or trying to show a seller that they can get more money for their house if they make a few simple and cheap changes - yet they get a fight all along the way.

Besides, agents have been providing FREE home valuations to sellers and showing buyers houses for FREE for decades. Why do more of the work yourself when you can have an expert do it for you - and be 100 times more accurate than an online service?

No matter what numbers are provided in tax assessment records and sales figures, a computer program will never be able to tell that buyers will deduct from the price because the property backs up to railroad tracks or has a disjointed floor plan or is on a busy corner or has a gas station across the street or has hideous wallpaper. Sellers ALWAYS think their house is better than their neighbor’s and cannot look at their property objectively. And buyers will always be polite and never tell an owner that they think the hot pink carpet that the seller is so proud to have installed himself and sees as “added value” is really a turn off.

No, people may see this as “doing the work themselves” but it will only make more work for the agents, trying to counteract misinformation and educate the public that a property’s value is more than square footage, number of rooms and what the house down the street sold for.

So I fail to see where the agent’s value is diminished when they have been doing these services for free, anyhow. How can you deduct for a service that you weren’t charged for in the first place?? And like Steve’s appraiser- mother mentioned, it will only make appraiser’s and agent’s job all the more difficult.

So, to say that agent’s value is diminished by an online service is like saying WebMD diminishes the value of doctors because people can self-diagnosis or NoLawyer diminishes the value for a lawyer when you really need one. Would a doctor charge less when you come in and say “I know what I have!” or would a lawyer charge less because you come in and say “I know my rights!” I highly doubt it.

These are just fancy bells and whistles to impress and have no more value than an online mortgage calculator. That can give you an idea of how much you can borrow, but it can’t know all of the loan programs available to you and hidden costs of the lending process.

Besides, as an agent in Atlanta pointed out to me, who are the real middlemen here? Many of these online providers offer consumers “free” information and once they have your contact info, they sell it to the highest bidder - of real estate agents. That’s how LendingTree gets “agents to compete” and HouseValues collects consumer info and sells it back to the agents - from a monthly fee to as much as 30% of the commission! If nothing else, these “middlemen” (who really DO NOT provide any actual service other than bringing buyer’s and seller’s info to agents who feel the need to PAY to get business) will DRIVE UP agent’s costs and are helping prevent any savings to consumers. Agents will want to charge more, not less, to cover these additional costs. Did you know that most of these companies you see advertising connecting you with a “qualified agent” only “qualify” them by finding out if they have enough money to pay for the leads? Yet they imply that they have screened them for the consumers. If these agents are so good, why do they have to pay for leads and are willing to cut their commission? Because they don’t know what the heck they are doing.

Like I said, people don’t know what they don’t know.