Ahhh, Zillow. How real estate agents have such a love/hate relationship with you. Nowadays, buyers are turning to online resources more and more to help begin their search for homes. Personally, I think that’s a wonderful thing to do.
What I don’t think is wonderful, however, are Zillow’s Zestimates. And, I’m only picking on Zillow for this because it seems to be quite popular (over 73 million unique visitors in the month of December alone!), and it’s currently under attack for inaccurate Zestimates. Shocker!
“CBS this Morning” had Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff, take part in one of their segments. Co-host Norah O’Donnell asked him the question that all real estate agents already know the answer to: Are Zestimates accurate? And if they’re off the mark, just how much of an error rate is there? The CEO calmly stated that Zestimates are a good starting point. And the median average for it’s inaccuracy is 8%.
8%! Luckily, these Zestimates only have a 6.5% median error for Wisconsin. Awesome, so we’re good, right? Let’s break it down even more, shall we?
WI homes on Zillow: 2,215,179
WI homes on Zillow with Zestimates: 1,760,731
Percentage of transactions in WI for which the Zestimate was within 5% of the actual transaction price: 40.1%
Percentage of transactions in WI for which the Zestimate was within 10% of the actual transaction price: 60.2%
Percentage of transactions in WI for which the Zestimate was within 20% of the actual transaction price: 85.7%
Verrrrry interesting, isn’t it?
If you’re honestly looking for an accurate price for what a home is worth, contact a real estate agent, someone who can actually take in the home’s unique features and updates into consideration. What about closed comps for the neighborhood? Or the current competition for homes similar to to one in question? We cover that too. A real estate agent doesn’t just say a number, we show you the number.
Read more about Zillow’s Zestimates here.
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