Running and Zestimating

Sunday morning, a small, but mighty Zillow team took to the streets in Seattle along glorious Lake Washington to take part in the 29th Annual Shore Run and Walk, a 6.7-mile race (sponsored by Zillow), and a 5K walk/run. A couple of thousand people participated with proceeds going to the renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Two things I learned from this event: Developers do not only thrive in dark rooms working on computers and a person can try to assess Zestimates of homes while on the run.

First, the Zestimating: Since our route was through Seattle’s tonier neighborhoods (past Kurt Cobain’s former home and Howard Schultz’s), we couldn’t help but ooh and aah over the gorgeous homes — big and small — that we passed while walking (yes, I was a walker, not a runner). The real buzz in the crowd came when we passed a mansion that was going to be razed to make way for a 12,900-square-foot home. One woman in the pack said, "What the heck will they do with all that room?" Funny we should be discussing the size of this manse when directly across the lake is Bill Gates’ little number, estimated to be about 50,000 sq. ft.

After the race, I headed home and fired up the computer to scan values along the route and saw that home values ranged from a low of $646K to a high of $30.6 million. Whoa. Nice digs here along Lake Washington.

Okay, back to reality. For Team Zillow, we all learned not to mess with Jeff Somers (Director, Agent Services) who proved to be the man, coming in 25th overall in the men’s 6.7-mile run with a time of 44:36.2 (6:40 per mile average).

But — BUT — the most revealing outcome of this Zillow team was the showing by the developers. Bryan Byrne  (Software Design Engineer) celebrated his birthday with a time of 52:05.8 (5th in age group); Nate Moch (Software Development Engineer, Test) — 56:55.5 (14th in age group); and Greg Whelan (Software Design Engineer) clocked in at 1:01:59.0, proving once again that developers do more than just sit in dark offices and write code.

Two other notable mentions: Zillow President Lloyd Frink and his dad, Fritz, completed the 5K in 41:59.6 and 42:00.3, respectively and Jorrit Van der Meulen (VP, Partner Relations) and his son, Gabe (age 8), hit their goal in running the 6.7-mile race under 2 hours (photo of Gabe under the clock).