Zillow’s Zestimates Rubbing You Wrong Too? Vent!
From a reader:
Average condos in SF are up 4.9% in the past year. I am happy for everyone who owns one, but I have a problem with the means of estimating a condo’s value and that is via Zillow.
I won’t waste your time telling me to ignore Zillow, as I would like to do. But many people go to the Zillow site to see their Zestimates and I have a huge issue with Zillow on their Zestimate of my condo.I am in a classy South Beach building and have an incredible, unobstructed view of the Bay along the Embarcadero. My neighbor, with the same footprint of a little over 1,000 sq ft 1 bed, 1 bath, has his place “Zestimated at over $1.2mil. My place used to be about that, but in the past 18 months my Zestimate has gone down to under $650,000. I think my neighbor’s place is accurately figured and it is a lovely place. But mine has a better view, by far and has no privacy issues as far as large office blocks looking right into his bedroom and dining room. So, to summarize: two identical units in the same building with a difference in Zestimates of about $600,000. Just seems impossible.
I would like to protest with Zillow but there is no opportunity to do so other than writing letters to their Seattle HQ. No responses. One real estate guy saw me complaining in a forum on Zillow and he said it is all algorhythms and there is no human input. He said to just ignore Zillow. If no one went to Zillow I would find that easy to do.
If anyone doubts me, just check out 75 Folsom #1105 and #1106. You tell me.
Any ideas?
I know our site has been asleep for a while, but anybody have any suggestions?
July 13th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Yeah I’ve noticed the same thing too. What’s funny in my neighborhood is that most of the places are several hundred thousand dollars low, and then when a place sells the Zestimate “spikes” to the sale price and then slowly creeps down again. One place has sold three times in the past few years, and the Zestimate graph looks like an EKG meter with all the sale price spikes… You’d think that Zillow would figure it out after three times!
Another thing about Zillow is I wonder whether they know the difference between a TIC and a condo.. from my casual outsider perspective it seems like they don’t, and obviously that really affects price.
At the end of the day, I think this is something that’s ignored. As an owner I just watch what’s actually selling in my hood, and when I was a buyer, the Zillow price lind of didn’t matter–I was bound by the seller and the comps.
July 17th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Now, if I can only build my site with Zillow royalty usability. I need to stop bit&^%ching.
But man, do they create confusion in the marketplace.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Zillow also cannot tell what kind, if any, view a home has. This can add considerable value to any home; especially in San Francisco
September 17th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
My zillow estimate was perhaps a little higher than the market area, but once I listed the price for sale and added my house on Zillow.
The “Zestimate” all of a sudden dropped 30,000 and 7,0000 Lower than my asking price. That makes it look like I’m over priced when I’m Not. The Zestimate is way off base, and needs to be fixed!!!
November 5th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Ditto to all the above. Zillow keeps comping my house in a solid neighborhood with a panoramic view of the Golden Gate Bridge with sales of dilapidated homes in bad neighborhoods with no views. It also doesn’t have a record of a sale of a (very high priced recently) sold neighbor home. In the past few months for some inexplicable reason, the value on my home has dropped by around $500,000. There is no recourse and absolutely no way to resolve this with Zillow. I think there is something illegal about the whole thing. If the Zillow estimate interferes with my ability to refinance, I am considering a class action suit.
November 10th, 2010 at 5:17 am
Hello Susan,
My house at 1031 Gardenwood Drive San Jose CA 95129 is Zestimated about $30,000 below houses in my neighborhood, and I am about to put up my house on sale. I have similar concerns as you right now. I wish there was a way to get the Zestimate fixed.
November 11th, 2010 at 6:06 am
I have a property on Long Island totally opposite coast and we are having the same problem. There is NO rhyme or reason to their “zestimate” It gives buyers a truly wrong idea of area values. I have tried to contact Zillow even providing proof of how wrong they are, and my emails have gone unanswered. I think someone needs to find an attorney and look into a class action suit. They are not doing any home owners any favors with their skewed estimates and dismal downward marked charts when area sales show different.
December 4th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Same here in Huntington Beach (Southern Calif). My house is one of the smaller homes on the street, but we’ve upgraded so much and its definitely a lot nicer than some of the other similar sizes here in our neighborhood. We’re also on a cul-de-sac, off the main road, lots of perks.. but now I’m down to the mid 5′s, along with some other 40 year old homes that are the same sq ft but definitely not in the same league as mine.. It really erks me that the guy across the street (same floor plan) who has never done anything to his house is rated HIGHER on Zillow than mine.. Cannot figure it out, there has to be some recourse because people definitely keep Zillow in mind when looking. We’ll be selling next summer, and I’m afraid this will effect my asking price substantially…and not for the better. I want to opt out of Zillow..how can I do that?
December 30th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Zillows problem is that they use EVERYthing in that neighborhood, sfr’s, condos, 2-4′s and include the veg o matic blender method of data ‘massaging’. I can’t tell you how many people tell me some out of whack value that they ‘ got from Zillow’. Views, improvements, condition, age, exterior influences, school districts- all the things used to estimate market value in an appraisal seem irrelevant in the Zillow scheme of things.
February 28th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
I have had similar problems with a low zestimate for unknown reasons. It seems we should be allowed to choose if we want to reveal the zestimate . The zestimate often appears random.
June 19th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
Zillow picture misses our property entirely (one down the block), has the square footage off by 2000 square feet, even the tax info is wrong.
I refreshed and reloaded over a few days, and their Zestimate changed as well! Went down .8 percent in value, then up by 18,000!!!
They also don’t seem to take into account waterfront footage values.
What a crock.
December 28th, 2011 at 11:22 am
I have the same problem. Because I “updated” the information on Zillow, my house is incorrectly estimated at much less than the other homes in the neighborhood. I noticed that some of my friends who did the same and corrected Zillow’s information on their homes also have incorrectly lower estiimates on their homes. This is very much a problem because one refinance mortgage company actually used Zillow to appraise my house’s worth!!!!
March 22nd, 2013 at 8:34 pm
In my neighborhood of South Beach prices have escalated about 23% in the last year, while Zillow estimates for my condo building have dropped $200K/unit in the last six months. Why? A multi-million-$ unit in our building “sold” – a transaction within a trust – for $72K 6 months ago. Zillow’s algorithms are so stupid that they can’t distinguish true sales from accountant tricks — even though the recorded price is a factor of 20 below a common sense estimate. Hard to believe the stay in business.
March 25th, 2013 at 7:38 am
Amen! Thanks for the comment. We’re going to use your comment as the focal point of a new post/thread.