Back in February I blogged about Zillow, the new online tool to "zestimate" home values. Zillow provides evaluations on over 67 million homes around the nation. Since that time, Zillow has teamed up with Yahoo, exposing the data to a much larger audience. Not to be left behind, Real Estate ABC, has joined the online value craze. An amazing amount of press has been dedicated to online home value estimates, as the main stream media seems thrilled at the idea of putting millions of real estate agents out of business. How accurate are the estimates? Well, in many cases not even close. In fact, just this week Zillow was named in a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commision. The complaint charges that Zillow misleads consumers, real estate professionals and lenders. This morning, I did a little accuracy check of 2 recent home sales in the area. The first was in Ledyard, a colonial home that closed for $300,000. Zillow "zestimated" the value at $325,000 while Real Estate ABC chose $336,000 as market value. Heading to the other side of the river, I selected a raised ranch that closed this week for $284,900. Zillow's "zestimate" was $292,000 - not bad! Real Estate ABC determined the value higher at $309,000. The blogosphere is full of articles from real estate professionals complaining about inaccurate estimates. While I agree that the evaluations are most often not reliable, I do think both sites provide value to consumers. Each site offers mapping and mostly accurate data about millions of homes. The tests I did this morning, while not correct as far as home value, did provide accurate home details. As far as putting real estate professionals out of business, I'm not worried about being replaced just yet! |
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