I was browsing Trulia today and stumbled upon their Value Appeal feature.
Whoa! Apparently Trulia is now in the business of scrutinizing the tax assessors valuations. Using homes within close proximity and/or tax card info to compare the home to be "evaluated" they determine if the homes value is inflated by the assessors office. They offer consumers a kit for $99 to "appeal" their tax valuation and ... wait for it ... offer continued MONITORING for tax assessments in the future. Since tax assessment are only performed about every 5 years in our market, I can’t imagine this is a value for the consumer.
Most Realtors will provide market data to their clients for assessment comparisons, for free.
I used my own home as an example for this feature. The program says I am overpaying by as much as $1000! 
If I were to list today I would price my home modestly at $340,000. Hmmm. Once again these sites carry disclaimers about the information they provide and how it is obtained, but who reads it? Realtors? Certainly not the consumer.
Sites like these are useful for searching homes and gathering some useful local data. Why not just use a Realtor's site and forgo the unnecessary, distracting and occasionally misleading information.
Comments(2)