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2015 Annual Fall Conference: Real Estate and Appraisal Symposium

Pacific Appraisers’ Ryan Whitelaw MAI and team will be attending the Appraisal Institute annual fall conference in San Francisco. See below for more details:

Friday, October 16, 2015
San Francisco Marriott
780 Mission Street (at 4th Street), San Francisco 

ANNUAL FALL CONFERENCE celebrates 65 consecutive years in San Francisco!

12 Breakout Sessions featuring over 30 presenters
Retail Market Update
Collateral Underwriter
Supporting Residential Adjustments
Medical Marijuana and Commercial Real Estate
Cool Appraisal Technology:  Tools, Tips & Tricks
How to Diversify and Build a “Bubble-Proof” Business
Residential Market Update:  The Impact of Millennials on the RE Market
Lessons Learned from Very Complex and Highly Unusual Valuation Experiences
Changing the Game: Redevelopment of Sports-Related Venues
Lessons from California Litigation Involving Appraisers
Developing Green and High Performance Real Estate
State of the Profession

Click here for more information.

Inaccurate Zillow ‘Zestimates’ a source of conflict over home prices

By Ken Harney

Excerpts: Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff…says Zestimates are “a good starting point” but that nationwide Zestimates have a “median error rate” of about 8%.

Shoppers, sellers and buyers routinely quote Zestimates to realty agents – and to one another – as gauges of market value. If a house for sale has a Zestimate of $350,000, a buyer might challenge the sellers’ list price of $425,000. Or a seller might demand to know from potential listing brokers why they say a property should sell for just $595,000 when Zillow has it at $685,000.

My comments: Ken Harney is well know, nationally syndicated real estate writer. We are hoping that a lot of people read this article so they understand the pitfalls of relying too heavily on Zillow. Zillow does have a great data base of sales and wonderful graphs, but their Zestimates have a large margin of error. AVM’s like Zillow work best in conforming neighborhoods with homes that are less than 10 years old.

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-harney-20150208-story.html

What do you think about Zillow? Post your comments.