Video Footage of Zillow’s Q2 Real Estate Market Reports

3 Comments so far

1. Bill Guerra on September 6, 2008 1:18 pm

   Hello David G. of Zillow, this is Bill Guerra of WillBuyAnyHouse.com/news

   I am responding to your comment, on our blog, where the article I wrote titled “Never Use Zillow.com To Comp Properties, Here’s Why” is parked.

   Thank you for the reply it provides great discussion for inquiring minds. You had mentioned about the Zillow and its ability to comp. My article really did cover most of this.

   Zillow does not have the ability to comp in subdivisions only, nor does it have the capability to see whats listed for sale in the subdivision. Both are very critical when you are writing the check/cash for say $100-$200,000 dollars to buy a house and close in 3-5 business days.

   In this instance an individual or investor needs the best software money can buy, wouldn’t you agree? The proprietary software I am talking about is the multiple listing service (MLS) which the Realtors use.

   Also it’s critical to see what houses are available for sale in a subdivision or area here is why. Say you have a house you want to comp (this is called running a comparable market analysis)on, yet there are 15 others on the market for sale in that subdivision. You must take that into consideration in making a buying decision because your subject houses’ value just plummeted.

   The reverse is true to, if you know that three is no other houses like yours available in the subdivision then you can increase your price.

   These are a few reasons why you need the MLS to seriously comp properties. That said, for a new investor trying to wrap their minds around running comps, or homeowners who want to get a gross ideal of what there place is worth, Zillow is just in fine. There is a place in the world for everything!

2. David G from Zillow.com on September 9, 2008 8:34 am

   Bill -

   As I said in my response to your post, you’re right that there’s no “subdivision” button on the Zillow comps feature. But … you’re wrong in that that users can still easily select a subset of comps in a subdivision. On Zillow, we present comps to users on a map and allow users to select that list down to those homes that are most similar to theirs. If that means picking homes in their subdivision, they can do that with the aid of the map (but yes, without a button.)

   What has any of this got to do with Spencer’s blog post?

3. Bill Guerra on September 9, 2008 1:35 pm

   David,
   you mean the spencer who posted on my blog then on his blog the one with the dog on it?

   I ment in the MLS users can access subdivision and subsets of search critirion.

   Does this make sence?