Why I Despise Zillow.
I normally don't re-blog another agents post but this one is an exception. Everything Greg says about Zillow and most of the comments made on his post I completely agree with, I just could just never said it as accurately as he does.
All the misinformation that Zillow provides is so frustrating to agents but more importantly incredibly deceiving to home buyers, sellers and owners. After reading it and all the comments, I felt it would be a disservice to all our past, current and future clients if I did not post it on our blog.
Please refer back to Greg's original post to comment.
I hate Zillow, and I refuse to apologize for it. I consider Zillow my archival enemy of real estate. Let me explain...
Texas is a non-disclosure state. This means that home values are not disclosed to Zillow. PERIOD. Zillow can use algorithms, mathematical computations and virtual guesses if they like; it doesn't matter. The truth is, Zillow does not have access to what homes have sold for. Not in the Lone Star State.
So what's the big deal?
Not all home owners use Zillow for fun. Some use it to make "REAL" choices and very serious decisions. Some use Zillow to formulate an offer on their home purchase despite the fact that the information used to armor their decision is not only erroneous, but by Zillow's own omission not completely accurate.
Me, my wife and 2 kids live at 11830 Brydan Drive in Cypress, Texas. Any -->local<-- REALTOR® slash home Appraiser would very likely value my home at about $265,000. The rental rate for my home is about $2,500 per month. A conventional mortgage with today's interest rates would mean that you would likely pay about $2,300 per month for my home. This would include what we call in this business PITI. (Zillow is not part of this local business.) PITI is an acronym for Principal, Interest, Taxes and Insurance.
I visited Zillow's website tonight and entered my address. Here's what they displayed:
The letters EST stand for "ESTIMATED" in my book.
So why am I being such a hard ass about Zillow? So unkind. Why do I waste my time bashing the popular Zillow Zestimate? After all, they are a very popular and publicly traded company with millions of raving fans. They've managed to be the cool place to play.
Here's why.....
My beacon score hovers around 790. I pay my bills. All of them. I have never had a home owners insurance claim. Last year while shopping for rates I was "declined" by Progressive. I was told.... "We can't give you home owners insurance." PERIOD! They didn't want my business.
Why?
They said the replacement value for my home FAR EXCEEDED what my home was actually worth.
I suspect you guys know where I am going with this. After 15 minutes of arguing and on hold music I was told that Progressive uses "several models" to determine a "homes replacement value."
BINGO!
ZILLOW!
DING DING!
But this isn't just about me. It's about a lot of people.
It's about people like you reading this. It's about the elderly couple who is barely computer literate. They may not GET that Zillow isn't just designed as a neat online real estate "toy." When they go to sell their home or buy a home they'll use the computer computation to "guide them" as they travel through their own real estate choices. LET THE BUYER BEWARE shouldn't be defense of corporate America. To Zillow's defense they do offer a disclaimer outlining their accuracy, or lack thereof.....
A gold star adds "value" to my son's homework who attends kindergarten. It doesn't do that here; not in my opinion. The median error in Dallas is 11.3% apparently this is worth TWO gold stars.
Me and my family succeeded in getting home owners Insurance last year. We simply avoided Progressive Insurance. They are obviously putting their trust in Zillow to help them computate a "rebuilding cost" for their customers.
When I explained this to the representative at Progressive he transferred me to the RETENTION department. When I got there I was transferred to claims, then back to the MAIN MENU.
When you get serious call a professional. Period.
The information contained in this blog is believed to be reliable and while every effort is made to assure that the information is as accurate as possible, the author of this blog, and its comments disclaim any implied warranty or representation about it's accuracy, completeness or appropriateness for any particular purpose. All information is copywritten and the property of Greg Nino.
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