Being in the real estate industry, someone asked me the other day how I deal with people valuing their homes based on what Zillow publishes. Zillow is pretty good at providing a “quick and dirty” glance of where a property’s value range MIGHT fall. And while it provides an easy to use interface in searching for you next home, it is important to note that as helpful as Zillow can be, it isn’t a sufficient resource in determining home value. Here’s a few reasons why:
1. National information: Zillow provides information for the whole country and not just the local market. It compares millions of homes and uses an algorithm to calculate value. Because it maintains so much data, it can only get so detailed. Professional local agents are able to provide you with a detailed and current value comparison for your home specific to your regional market.
2. The Zestimate factors three basic things: physical attributes (ie: # of bedrooms and baths), tax assessments, and prior and current sales transactions. The algorithm is not subjective in that it is unable consider home features that can affect the value of a home. Zillow doesn’t know that you upgraded your kitchen, or that your neighbors knocked down their garage. It has no way of gauging a home’s condition and just assumes a calculated value based on publicly available information.
Find out what's happening in Catonsvillefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
3. In the state of Maryland, Zillow states that they have a 5.7% median of error, meaning half the homes were closer in value than the error percentage and half were farther off the value—still a pretty big spread. And it important to note that Zillow uses its own system to allow itself a 4-star accuracy rating for our region.
Hope that is useful information for someone out there. Happy hunting!
