Do valuation websites help consumers or are they misinformation?
I received a call last week from a client who wanted to sell their aunts house in Columbus, Ohio. My client lives out of town and asked me to do a CMA for the property. I email the analysis for her review.
The next day she gave me a call with a couple of questions. It seem a friend had told her about this great new website Zillow where you could get instant valuations of properties. Zillow was giving a value of $40,000 more for the property then my CMA and she wondered why? I had valued the house in the $160,000 range.
How many times has this happened to you? This is at least my fifth case this year of a homeowner questioning my CMA accuracy because a web site had given them a higher value. It has become such an issue that before a listing presentation I will look up a property on Zillow, Truila, Realtor.com, ect.
The Columbus Dispatch wrote a great article yesterday titled: Value judgments, Web sites' guesses on house prices vary widely from actual sales, comparison shows. A great read for any agent or homeowner.
How they fared: The average valuation difference from sales price on 27 home sales in Columbus, Ohio between December 3-4 2009.
Chase Bank- 9%
Cyberhomes- 13%
Eppraisal- 13%
Realestate.com- 25%
Realtor.com- 13%
Zillow- 17%
I explained to my client that these valuation websites don't take into consideration things like; market conditions, location, Rail Road tracks, property condition, lot characteristic, busy roads, power lines, ect, ect.
Are these websites good tools or they giving consumers unrealistic expectations?
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