The World according to Zillow

Reading your post this afternoon and catching the mountain picture header, I drifted off into my mind remembering the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, imagining that taste of a good cup of coffee to warm up the crisp air......(I lived in Oregon for too brief a year)

Then snapped back to reality with phone ringing and cell paging....

I agree while Zillow lacks ability to know nuiances of remote market areas like Kitsap County, WA or even the unusual variance of 1 street subdivisions (one street selling $70-$80 thousand and the next street over selling $450-$500 thousand) like we have here in Baton Rouge, Zillow is here to stay.  Consumers love the adventure of  searching for themselves.  Many of us were brainwashed in school that "knowledge is power". 

I think agents like us in areas where Zillow doesn't work as well certainly have a "consulting" advantage that can make us shine when we come in and explain those nuiances!  And gain even more points when we start with the same facts they worked so hard to serach out.

I think Zillow took off just like any public information site does.  It is a way for the consumer to get information without having to ask for help.  But unless they are going to list their home FSBO they still need a Realtor and you will have your opportunity to either agree with Zillow or show them the true comps for their home.

Deb

PS I like your music widget....I am going to check on that!

We agree, as a general site they are a cool tool that a consumer can get info when they want to. But the example below is why they are not the end all for getting a homes value.

Here is how Zillow has our own home valued. Zillow says that our home's current value is $388,500. We live in a 4004 square foot, 100 year old church that we have made into our home here in Vancouver, WA.  Monday we had a full appraisal done and Thursday the bank called and admittedly said that this was a low and conservative appraisal. The conservative appraisal came in at $440,000 and they said that they knew it should have been closer to $500K. The difference between Zillow's $388,500 and the conservative bank appraisal of $440,000 is huge.

Rich, come on now, if Zillow says it and the News Media writes about it, it has to be right :) :)

Hi Rich... My experience with Zillow is that they are WAY off base.  I had two nearly identical homes located next door to each other (same floor plan and square footage, just different front design) and Zillow had them over $50K apart in price, when by any real comparative method they would comp out identically.  Zestimates are Zinaccurate at best!

Hey Rich,  I think we could all learn a thing or to by following what Zillow does and has done.  They have created respect and demand from the consumers.  We can sit here and gripe about zestimates, but what good would that do? 

The way they have branded themselves rather quickly is amazing.  IMO there are some genius people working at zillow...

Rich - Zillow is not a common resource here in rural Missouri. I almost forget it's out there. What I know is from AR and other agents talking about it. Can you give a quick summary - how did Zillow get so high on the radar so quickly? Internet marketing blasts? TV blasts?

Rich,

Zillow does offer quite a bit of valuable services to real estate community, including homeowners and buyers. Zestimates can lurch this and that way, though, and that's where anyone has to be careful.

What's Zillow?  At least the consumers in my market never bring it up.

They've created an Internet presence all right, but that's not necessarily good. My husband has found that it's almost not worthwhile to try to work with a seller who visited Zillow before calling him.

Zillow is not a big force in our little market.  Yes it is there, but one house might be zestimated way high, one way low.   I realize that their info is skewed - apparently, everyone here knows that:)  I haven't had any seller even mention Zillow to me.  But the site is interesting to visit.

I think that Zillow is a resource at best.  It's not iron clad nor is it anything close to perfect.  I think that it's an incredibly conservative guage.  But it is growing in acceptance and as that occurs, so comes the power.

Thanks Rich for the post. I agree with what others have said and find that the Zillow information put out is not very accurate of up to date. AS a fairly new member of the AR community I pleased to see others are posting accurate market reports.

I like Zillow for putting my listings out there and increasing my online presence....but there is just no way a website can replace a "human generated" CMA.  Unfortunately, a lot of consumers may not understand that.

I have had a couple people get their idea of a home's worth/pricing from Zillow.  I always explain how this may not be accurate - and usually I am correct.  I checked one of my listings that I have had over a year (dropping price consistantly) and they were way off.   However, I agree with you that they do a great job in creating promoting themselves and being considered by consumers to be a reliable source.

Rich, Zillow is viral, not accurate but viral. They do know how to effectively market themselves...I'll give them that.

All Zillow did was put their numbers out there.  The numbers don't have to be very accurate when no one else in the market is offering alternative data.  Our local fishwrap doesn't quote Zillow because a local broker provides them with much better data.  Unfortunately he's now being fined by the MLS.  Organized real estate is its own worst enemy.

I think the misinformation that they send out does a great disservice to people.  They are very very very inaccurate in our market.

I personally attended Zillow's Open House a couple months ago and was impressed by their information available to us. Zillow is now the second most visited real estate site in the nation and I would predict they will be number one in a couple more years. The agents who were at the Open House were using Zillow and thought highly of it. And their customer service is excellent. They really want to help.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time.

When your audience doesn't know what they're reading, you can fool all of those people all of the time.