Unfortunately, Zestimates aren’t very accurate. Here are the details.
If you’re a homeowner, you can’t trust Zillow’s Zestimates to estimate your home's value because they’re simply not very accurate. According to Zillow themselves, a Zestimate is a good starting point in determining a home’s value, but it’s not an appraisal (if it was, we’d call it a ‘Zappraisal’ 😜). You see, a Zestimate is based on public- and user-submitted data. Public data is usually pretty accurate as it includes information such as a home’s square footage, but user-submitted data is where the problem lies.
If you want to sell your house, you know people will go to Zillow to check its value. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to you to go on Zillow and include all its great features, benefits, and renovations you’ve made? There are agents out there who help their sellers increase their homes’ Zestimates to make them seem like they’re worth more than they are. In short, Zestimates can be tweaked and manipulated.
Zillow goes on to say that they encourage homeowners to supplement their home’s Zestimate by getting a comparative market analysis or an appraisal. After all, Zillow’s never been to your home and has no idea how it stacks up against others in the area. If you live in a major metropolitan area where there are many homes for Zillow to compare your home to, its Zestimate might be more accurate. If you live in a rural area without a lot of data or one that features a variety of unique homes, your home’s Zestimate can be way off the mark.
"Zestimates can be tweaked and manipulated."
Zillow even admits that roughly ¾ of their Zestimates are off by 10% or more. If your home is worth $700,000 and its Zestimate is off by at least 10%, it’s either $70,000 too high or low. Ultimately, Zillow is like real estate’s version of WebMD. If you’re curious about a health condition, you can look it up on WebMD. If you’re seriously concerned about your health, though, you’ll probably reach out to a doctor. You wouldn’t trust your health with WebMD, so why trust your home’s value—probably your largest asset—with some website?
If you want to know what your home’s truly worth in our current market, contact a real estate professional such as myself. In fact, I invite you to send your home’s Zestimate my way. I’ll then compare your home to recently sold homes in your area. Then we’ll know how accurate the Zestimate is. If I collect enough Zestimates from you and other curious homeowners, I’ll feature them in my next video.
Of course, if you have any other real estate questions, feel free to reach out to me as well. I’d love to help you.