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.
