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Answers (5)
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21466
You might want to read this article from the New York Times about the estimating statistics provided the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (bls.gov):
nytimes.com/2011/08/17:
Raw Data on Economic Growth Paints Fuzzy Picture
Coming up with good guesses on what is affecting various markets is not nearly as simple as some would like to imply.
A staff of 200 people cannot be manually tweaking 100 million estimates 3 times a week! Besides, manual tweaking completely destroys the purpose of having an independent machine evaluation based on public numbers only, to create and track small market indexes, similar to Case-Shiller; but covering much more regions. (Zillow also provides upper and lower tier indexes, that Case-Shiller does not provide; and the index history data can all be downloaded in Excel Files from the "local info" pages, using the tab above).
As for data that is wrong on neighboring property? Every home details page has a "report a problem" button under the edit pull down tab under the main photo that sends a priority E-mail for the issue to be reviewed, and given back to the data provider company for double checking the public records. The data is only as good as the people that are willing to follow through and report the problems they notice through the proper methods.
nytimes.com/2011/08/17:
Raw Data on Economic Growth Paints Fuzzy Picture
Coming up with good guesses on what is affecting various markets is not nearly as simple as some would like to imply.
A staff of 200 people cannot be manually tweaking 100 million estimates 3 times a week! Besides, manual tweaking completely destroys the purpose of having an independent machine evaluation based on public numbers only, to create and track small market indexes, similar to Case-Shiller; but covering much more regions. (Zillow also provides upper and lower tier indexes, that Case-Shiller does not provide; and the index history data can all be downloaded in Excel Files from the "local info" pages, using the tab above).
As for data that is wrong on neighboring property? Every home details page has a "report a problem" button under the edit pull down tab under the main photo that sends a priority E-mail for the issue to be reviewed, and given back to the data provider company for double checking the public records. The data is only as good as the people that are willing to follow through and report the problems they notice through the proper methods.
- Dunes....
- Contributions:3894
I've been known to express my opinion about the Zestimate, better response ect...
Few things...We are here and they are allowing us to make our complaints publicly in a Forum looked at by many many people...
They are not censoring the Complaints
Since the Zestimate changes they have recently added more staff to respond to the complaints..
They have in this Forum admitted some of the Problems and have made change
IMO they still have aways to go but at least they are edging in that direction because they do allow us to post publicly (Tell me another RE Site that does that or even responds period?)
I hope you and others keep voicing your concerns and I hope Zillow listens but when it degenerates into FOOLISH comments like
" makes them the most despised company in the USA"
it just becomes a silly immature Bit*h session that helps 0 people and has 0 value
(It was an interesting discussion & of value IMO up until then)
Few things...We are here and they are allowing us to make our complaints publicly in a Forum looked at by many many people...
They are not censoring the Complaints
Since the Zestimate changes they have recently added more staff to respond to the complaints..
They have in this Forum admitted some of the Problems and have made change
IMO they still have aways to go but at least they are edging in that direction because they do allow us to post publicly (Tell me another RE Site that does that or even responds period?)
I hope you and others keep voicing your concerns and I hope Zillow listens but when it degenerates into FOOLISH comments like
" makes them the most despised company in the USA"
it just becomes a silly immature Bit*h session that helps 0 people and has 0 value
(It was an interesting discussion & of value IMO up until then)
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21466
When you are ready to sell, you will get several comparative market analysis' from several agents; throw out the top and the bottom and use the remained to decide what to list the house at.
And the potential buyers will get several comparative market analysis's from various agents as well as look up opinions of approximate value on 5 to 30 different websites, and decide what the "want" to offer (not what it is worth). And if the two of you can negotiate something in-between, the buyer would probably have a contingency in the contract for getting funding, which will require an appraisal, which the buyer will pay for. And that will help determine the fair market value at the time.
And by then, Zillow will have changed their numbers hundreds of times, and will have even recalculated the history of their estimates again.
The website will never be held liable for what someone does nor does not sell their property for. That is not the nature of editorial content of media organizations.
If you want to sue someone regarding the impact on potential value; sue the National Association of Realtors®. They are directly responsible for millions of people filing bankruptcy and even millions more households losing their homes due to the intentional misleading talking points they propagated to put income in the pockets of their members.
And the potential buyers will get several comparative market analysis's from various agents as well as look up opinions of approximate value on 5 to 30 different websites, and decide what the "want" to offer (not what it is worth). And if the two of you can negotiate something in-between, the buyer would probably have a contingency in the contract for getting funding, which will require an appraisal, which the buyer will pay for. And that will help determine the fair market value at the time.
And by then, Zillow will have changed their numbers hundreds of times, and will have even recalculated the history of their estimates again.
The website will never be held liable for what someone does nor does not sell their property for. That is not the nature of editorial content of media organizations.
If you want to sue someone regarding the impact on potential value; sue the National Association of Realtors®. They are directly responsible for millions of people filing bankruptcy and even millions more households losing their homes due to the intentional misleading talking points they propagated to put income in the pockets of their members.
- bogard07
- Contributions:7
im not listing my home...first of all...i know for a fact that one of the houses sold for less than mine did 7 years ago and have recently had a house sell for over 400,000 dollars...i have the same amount of sq. ft as 2-3 of the houses on my block and they are going up in value...and the details of the house i have changed since they where dropping my value i felt and still do they do not need to know every detail about my house...something is wrong that my house is the only house on the block that is losing value, and everyone eles is going up in high amounts...and i will never trust your site...but if it effects my future selling of the home...then i do certainly hold zillow responsible...
- Pasadenan
- Contributions:21466
It is not based on upgrades! Upgrades are completely ignored.
It is based on modeling non-distressed recent sales to a number of different issues, including:
1) house sqft
2) lot sqft
3) # bedrooms
4) # bathrooms
5) # stories
6) year built
7) tax assessed value (adjusted for local rules)
8) last sold price extrapolated from sold date
9) covered parking (if in the county records).
The last sold price adjusted for last sale date makes more difference than most of the others.
Why should you be angry? If your neighbor's house has been listed for years, then a Realtor listed it, and you need to contact the Realtor's broker and get them to correct their complaint as well as file a complaint with the local Real Estate board and the state so that they can lose their licenses.
This is an "information site", not a "listing" site. About 100 million residential properties are "shown", but only about 3.7 million "listed" for sale.
The machine opinions of approximate value are not used for offers or loans or anything else. So what makes you so worried about the machine's opinion?
The machine updates the numbers 3 times a week, based on the recorded sales collected in the area. The number is not constant; it is dynamically trying to figure out how much people are paying to track the market. Nothing else.
If you have done what you say, any buyer that is considering an offer will already know that, and will already know that the machine doesn't look at improvements at all.
Besides, Zillow publishes that 50% of the houses sold in Pennsylvania will NOT sell within +/- 8% of the opinion of approximate value, and that 43.3% will NOT sell within +/- 10% of the opinion of approximate value, and that 26.3% will NOT sell within +/- 20% of the opinion of approximate value.
Every page on the Zillow website has links to that information about tolerance range. The problem is not to machine opinion, it is only those that misuse the data for unintended purposes without bothering to read the conditions.
It is based on modeling non-distressed recent sales to a number of different issues, including:
1) house sqft
2) lot sqft
3) # bedrooms
4) # bathrooms
5) # stories
6) year built
7) tax assessed value (adjusted for local rules)
8) last sold price extrapolated from sold date
9) covered parking (if in the county records).
The last sold price adjusted for last sale date makes more difference than most of the others.
Why should you be angry? If your neighbor's house has been listed for years, then a Realtor listed it, and you need to contact the Realtor's broker and get them to correct their complaint as well as file a complaint with the local Real Estate board and the state so that they can lose their licenses.
This is an "information site", not a "listing" site. About 100 million residential properties are "shown", but only about 3.7 million "listed" for sale.
The machine opinions of approximate value are not used for offers or loans or anything else. So what makes you so worried about the machine's opinion?
The machine updates the numbers 3 times a week, based on the recorded sales collected in the area. The number is not constant; it is dynamically trying to figure out how much people are paying to track the market. Nothing else.
If you have done what you say, any buyer that is considering an offer will already know that, and will already know that the machine doesn't look at improvements at all.
Besides, Zillow publishes that 50% of the houses sold in Pennsylvania will NOT sell within +/- 8% of the opinion of approximate value, and that 43.3% will NOT sell within +/- 10% of the opinion of approximate value, and that 26.3% will NOT sell within +/- 20% of the opinion of approximate value.
Every page on the Zillow website has links to that information about tolerance range. The problem is not to machine opinion, it is only those that misuse the data for unintended purposes without bothering to read the conditions.
no one has done any upgrades in the properties around me. there #'s go up and mine go down?
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