03/07/2024
ZILLOW IS A LEAD GEN COMPANY and they don't know what a house is worth...
To be clear...I'm not anti-Zillow...but I do believe it's important to understand the purpose behind the tools we use and the main purpose, or ethos, of Zillow is to generate lead opportunities for real estate professionals.
That isn't a 'bad' thing, per se, but I do believe it's important to understand the way they grow their database to sell to those real estate professionals is related to two things primarily.
First, they are a repository of listing information, similar to what real estate agents have access to on the MLS, but open to the public.
Second, their "Zestimate" which is an estimate of a property's value. The important thing to understand is that a Zestimate is not the same thing as an appraisal and, very often, Zestimates are not very accurate. I often like to jokingly say the 'A' in Zillow stands for accuracy!
Sure...even a broken clock is right twice a day...so sometimes the Zestimate might be right on the money, but your best option to determine a property's value, short of a full appraisal, is to have a good Realtor create something called a "Comparable Market Analysis" or CMA. Most agents will do these for you at no charge, and assuming the agent knows what they're doing, this will be a much more accurate estimate of value than a Zestimate, though remember, it's still not an "appraisal."
Also, thanks to advances in AI technology, there are some resources that are getting better at quickly determining value even without needing to do a CMA.
All this to say, if you have a property that you'd like to know it's estimated current value, you can also reach out to me...through my resources as a mortgage lender I have access to a great AI tool that will get you an estimate in the ballpark that, so far, I've found to be pretty accurate.
