Zestimates, Zillow and Ozzer Odditiez

I was reading this hilarious post today by an agent sharing the ABCs of what she’s learned over the years. It’s probably funnier if you are an agent or if you’ve bought a house.

But the blogger mentioned how Zillow and real estate sites like them generate home price estimates, which are most often incorrect, but which many people take as gospel.

This is particularly important when buying or selling home in Phoenix. The market changes so rapidly that you don’t want to get the wrong information about home prices.

The CEO of Zillow was smart enough to respond to this agent’s post and pointed people to a page where they declare how accurate they are. He also said clearly that “agents or appraisers will always be more accurate than a computer model.”

See an image from that page, below.

You can see that in Maricopa county only 20% of Zestimates are within 5% of sales price. The median error is about 14%. So, a house worth $200,000 could show up on their system as $228,000 or as low as $172,000. That is a huge difference!

Lesson: if you want to buy or sell a home, get an agent who will get you on the Multi-Listing Service where the sales numbers are more accurate than any other option. I can help you by calling me at 602-456-9388.