Zillow Home Values… Are they accurate?

Silly Zilly Zestimates unveiled… what about Zillow home values then?

(ROBOT VOICE)

Are YOU afraid of ROBOTS? If you saw the Matrix or iRobot then you SHOULD BE!

Let’s talk about Zillow Home Values… the ZESTIMATE… AND ROBOTS!

Robots you say? What do Robots have to do with Zillow & Zestimates?

ALGO-RHYTHMS … meaning  Rhythm of the Algos

OBVIOUSLY an ancient mathematical musical society who happened to be  

VERY Rhythmic… WHILST. doing equations.

Zilly (my name for them) has been using this ancient tech for thousands of years.

SERIOUSLY.. Zillow Zestimates and Zillow Home Values are wrong more than they’re right here in So Cal… near the coast.

Reading from my book Dwelling Selling, how the internet made selling a house in the South Bay Easy and other funny stories.

Chapter2: Where Are You Going, and How Soon Do You Need to Be There?

OR… I “hope” I’ll Be Home for Christmas … or Festivus … or Whatever

This is a new chapter, so I guess we’ll call this Chapter Two… So you own a house and you need to sell it. Now what? Well, you’ve already checked Zillow, right? They sent you an evaluation of your house and you’re either 1- mad or 2- giddy.

Zillow knows your house, right? Your improvements. Redfin knows your view, doesn’t it? Trulia knows your neighbor backs up to commercial land and you don’t, right?  Wait, don’t they? Unfortunately for you, the robots don’t know anything about anyone’s house except the price and the square footage, divided by 7.3725 … voila! (I always thought that word was pronounced with a ‘V’ like in ‘violin,’ or ‘viola’ … whoops!) Has this happened to you yet? If not, it’s in your near future. You’re going to finish reading this sentence and go check out what Zilly has to say. If you live in the South Bay, then you know it’s all about how far to the beach and if you have a view. Well, that’s not all. There’s always “How close are you to an Irish bar?” It’s very important if you’re in a coastal community in SoCal.

NAR states that more than 95% of people looking to buy or sell a home rely on the internet as the MAIN source of information. Yes… MAIN source. Two years ago that was less than 50%.

Now let’s talk about Zillow home values

I recently had a client who Zillowed and came up with $2.65 million as a price for their house. Then, a recent refinance appraiser, (see the later chapter about appraisers,) came in with a value of $2.8 million. When I showed the seller the actual data – recent sales in the last 90 days of comparable properties in their neighborhood – the price was more in the neighborhood of $2.35-$2.4 million. We priced the house at $2.4 million. After 10 days in the market, we got four offers, all at $2.4 million. No one went over that value. Who knows real estate values? Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. Picture me scratching my head.

After being “Zillowed” or visited by a uniformed appraiser, I show up. During our first meeting, you might think I’m an idiot … perhaps like the typical “lying real estate agent” trying to underprice everything so I can make a commission. That’s the first day. I call this process “getting Zillowed.” After a couple of weeks on the market, I look like a genius. How does that happen? Thirty years’ experience in selling real estate may just very well help me be “Smarter Than A Robot”. (I do want to be on that show, by the way.) We’ve learned in the movies to never piss off or embarrass a robot, right? It just always gets messy after that. Ask Will Smith, he knows firsthand. Okay, so you check Zilly and have a “possible range of value,” albeit a very large possible range. Then what?                                        

When I say “possible range,” It’s really a polite jab at what I’m really going to say. A Zillow Home Value is usually much higher than what the market is … or way lower. The takeaway is that you just can NEVER trust a robot. Call a human. Call a human named Daryl Palmer who wrote this book for you to you stay away from any robot danger. 

What do I mean? Let’s look at some South Bay real Live examples ok? (see video for examples)

IF you’ve gotten this far… congrats!!!  if you like what I’m sharing now… hit the like button and subscribe for more wild and raw stories! …. really… please… did you click the Bell??? We ALL know you have FOMO!

Zillow Home Values are they a joke?

A couple of yrs ago Zilly CEO sold his home 40% LOWER than his own Zestimate. ouch!

3 yrs ago, Zilly was sued Claiming Zesties are wrong and are keeping homes from selling… It’s not just Zilly… it’s ALL of them!

Redfin, Trulia, Realtor.com (which is NOT part of the National Assoc of Realtors NAR) .. that’s another story… All the AVM’s try… but they’re rarely correct here near the coast.

So Beware! What you see may be fooling you! If you’re looking to Sell OR Buy… you need to have correct data on what values are in the area you’re in. Done by a human… not C3Po.

For fun… below is a link to my AVM (automatic valuation model) 

www.BeachHomeWorth.com

type in your address and email and the robots (who work for me in an underground location)…  

will send you their opinion. 

Let me know what it is & if you think it’s close… 

Don’t believe a robot… but it’s fun to mess with them!