I am not a fan of Zillow or Redfin, but I also can't ignore them. Why? My clients use them and then call me to tell me what they want to see! So, I am aware of them, have to refute them sometimes and sometimes I just get a good giggle when their "Zestimate" is off by hundreds of thousands.
However, I used them the other day with one of my sellers. You see, the property is the best one, by far, in the neighborhood. No question about it. As a result, there are absolutely, positively no comparables to value the house. Where this house is over 3100 square feet on a third of an acre, most the others are, at best, 2400 square feet and at most on a quarter acre. We decided to list the home at $759,000, which I could provide comps for if I took into account smaller houses and adjust for the large descrepancy.
It's been 6 weeks with two buyers that love the house...and would write an offer...if they could see value... but they can't. After this long, it is pretty evident that, while I can show value on paper, buyers aren't buying into it. The easiest way to demonstrate this by showing my sellers what the buyers are looking at...Redfin and Zillow. Both show the value in the 5's. Redfin was more generous, but neither was in the ballpark.
Now, I do know that this house would sell in the high 6's, no problem. In fact, if we had started there, it would be in escrow. But we couldn't start there because that price won't support my clients retirement plans. We met the other day, I did my show and tell and explained why we are spinning our wheels. Free public sites are about as valuable as what the viewer pays for them, but are great for trying to show to a seller why the buyers don't think the value is there!
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