Zillow’s Zestimate feature is so inaccurate that it can’t be relied on as an accurate appraisal for your home, and here’s why.
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As I’m sure you’re aware, one of the most popular real estate sites out there is Zillow, which boasts over 75 million unique visits per month. One of the features that Zillow offers is the Zestimate, which uses an algorithm to come up with a home valuation based on data that is publicly available. They give this valuation without ever seeing or walking through your home.
Zillow realizes that this isn’t the most accurate system out there, but they still want you to visit their site and use the Zestimate tool. The CEO of Zillow has actually admitted that the Zestimate is off by about 8%, but what we’re finding is that the inaccuracy is actually around 15% or more.
To illustrate this discrepancy, take the example of the CEO of Zillow, who sold his home last year for about 40% less than what the Zestimate valued his home at.
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Zillow’s Zestimate can be off by 15% or more.
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The challenges we’re seeing with this level of inaccuracy is that Zillow can’t take into account the location or the way a home sits on the property. They aren’t able to see the lot size or the views out the window. The only way to do this is to walk through the home and examine all the things that Zillow can’t.
Because Zillow cannot come up with an accurate value for your property, they’ve actually stated that they will award $1 million to any company or person that can fix their algorithm so that the valuations are more accurate.
If you have any questions about this topic or are wondering about the value of your home, give me a call. We can come out and walk through your property and give you a fair market value for it. If there’s anything else that I can do in Tucson real estate, don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to helping you.