When you are trying to figure out what your home is worth, who can you trust?
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I don’t trust the big national companies like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com.
These guys have skin in the game. They are in the business of buying and selling homes at the same time we are supposed to trust their “zestimates”?
Further, I regularly hear that people get estimates that end up being higher than the market, and they are disappointed later. Could this be that those companies are trying to entice you to sell by showing you a higher estimate?
You decide.
It was nice to see that AZCentral launched a home estimate tool, in collaboration with the Arizona Regional Multi Listing Service, called Street Scout.
See this article about it. It may be behind a paywall, FYI.
Now, to be sure, I still believe that the best way to get an estimate on the value of your home is to call me at 602-456-9388.
And here’s why: the automated services can’t really tell the difference between a home that has been recently updated, and one that never was –or was 10 years ago. I can look and see the difference.
And there is a price difference of easily $20/sqft, depending on the house.
Consumers are so used to these automated systems that we forget about the importance of talking with a real, live person. The sale of your home is worth the time.
Of course, if you don’t want to talk, you can just go to this web page and send me your address. I will personally do your comps.
Yep. Real live person!
But, let’s go back to Street Scout. The reason this is a game changer is because it uses the ARMLS system directly. Zillow and all those guys don’t have access to the same data as we agents get from ARMLS. They add all kinds of alchemy and conflict of interest.
So, you can get a better sense of what your house should be worth and know that the people behind the data are not also benefiting from the information. ARMLS is a company that we agents subscribe to. It is not run by the agents or firms that profit directly from the data.
This is the same data that I use to estimate the value of your home. The major difference is, of course, that Michelle and I have years of experience in a very specific market in Maricopa County and we will bring that knowledge to our estimate.
