Real estate expert says Zillow is good way to find home’s value
Oct 30, 2013, 5:00 AM | Updated: 5:00 am
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Homeowners who want to know how much their home is worth are clicking right to Zillow.
“Zillow has done a great job of branding themselves as the go-to place,” said Valley real estate expert Dean Wegner. “If you want to know value, the word ‘Zillow’ is synonymous with checking your home’s value.”
Wegner said that Zillow’s estimates of your home’s value, which it calls “Zestimates,” are extremely accurate, even though the Zillow is a “lagging index,” meaning that the data is going to be 30 to 90 days old.
Wegner recently put Zillow to the test.
“We looked at five Zestimates and five appraisals that had just happened within the last five days. These were values before Zillow was able to digest the public records information,” Wegner explained. “What we found was that Zillow was about 99 percent accurate in all of those cases.”
Another Valley realtor, who wanted to remain anonymous, disagrees with Wegner, saying that Zillow is not accurate.
She was contacted after it was noticed that a house she has listed for sale is priced at $23,000 more than the Zestimate. The realtor told us that Zillow does not take into account the condition of the house, such as whether it is in bad shape or has had several upgrades.
Wegner says that Zillow is a good way to find your home’s value, but there are other things to take into account when deciding the selling price of your house.
“I look at the Zestimate, and then I look at homes that are currently under contract in the neighborhood,” Wegner said. “Then I can see that if your same floor plan is under contract at a much higher amount, I know that we can push it another two to five percent above that.”
Wegner says he checks home values on Zillow several times a day.
