Boulder real estate prices and Zillow: Nothing more than a parlour game

Hi Bob ... Interesting ... Like you I've seen Zillow be useful ... In northern Virginia it tends to be just a bit below the market but that seems a good position to me.  In your data what was the timeframe of capturing the Zestimate ... When listed?  Contracted?  Settled?  Zillow is a moving target.

I wrote a blog about some other resources out there that are much more accurate than Zillow.com

Better than Zillow national and local resources

Read through this and test out this tool.  I am willing to bet if you check your area, it is within 5% of the sales price 90+% of the time.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out over time.

The thing that I have noticed is when Zillow has the square footage way off, or is missing a bathroom, or the basement, etc.  Then the data is WAY off.  I have also seen sales records where the most recent sale shows it selling for 100,000 less than the sale before??  I wonder if this is a typo or some kind of shady deal.  These kinds of things really skew the numbers.

I recently sold an investment property and the Zestimate for it was coming out lower than what it was worth, mainly because many of the other homes were splits or 2 stories, and all the sq. footage counted.  But my ranch only showed the main level, not the basement, so it appeared much smaller than the comps.  Therefore the price/sq ft. showed much higher but still came out valued much lower than comparable properties. 

Zillow is just the tip of the iceberg and NAR has fallen behind the times.  The homebuying public wants immediate information and the ability to review listings at their own pace without a real estate agent looking down their back.  The internet gives them this opportunity during their research stage.

The problem with the internet sites is that so much mis-information is out there. Bubble bursting, real estate crash, etc.  Also some sites seek the bargain hunters and cheapskates such as the foreclosure and FSBO sites.

Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist, Edgeio, Oodle etc. have one flaw in that their information and listings will never be complete. They rely on individual input from agents.

The public wants all the information and all the listings.  Soon they will realize these sites are incomplete and soon they will tire of surfing through a dozen different sites.

The MLSs have all the listings (except exclusives and who is stupid enough to do this in this age), however the MLSs are regional and independent.

NAR needs to find a way to get all the MLSs to cooperate and should develop a national public website to offer the public inforation, news, market conditions, and a complete list of listings on a national level.  This needs to be a non-profit site which is fair to all members. There should be no advertising (or at least no competitive real estate advertising). It should allow all members to list their profile and testimonials and links to blogs and websites. This promotes membership since there are a lot of agents out there who are not members.  This way we can capture the business that is going to these other sites. IDX was a step in the right direction.  Thank God, it is between brokers only and that this is not made available to the Oodles and Zillows.

Realtor.com is not the way.  This is a money making machine that only feature agents that purchase their products.  Not everyone has that kind of advertising budget.

After the incurbation period most buyers will seek the servicees of a real estate agent to see properties and handle the transaction.  How do they select them?  If they do not have a relative or friend in the business, they look around.  This is why exposure is necessary and where AR and Localism assist us in getting that increased exposure.

The reason that Zillow misses square footage, basements, etc is often becasue of the way tax assessor's report the information in public records.  For example, in Athens, GA the assessor includes any finished basement area in the Gross Living Area, which inflates the GLA for valuation purposes.  As an appraiser and real estate broker this aggravates me to no end because many of the agents in my area don't realize this, don't measure the house themselves, obviously cannot eyeball it and tell somehting is off and then consequently reports the wrong square footage on the local MLS.

The stats are great, I've been putting together a similar list locally.  I utilize Zillow, Craigslist and many other less traditional venues for marketing after years of paying R.com for enhanced services and getting NO return on investment.   I am happy to see that most zestimates are on the low side versus the high, I can work with them being low!