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Information and images used with express permission from www.zillow.com
If you could tap into the estimated home values for over 40 million homes in the US, with data on another 20 million, all for free, without any strings attached, what would you say?
Before you say 'impossible', say 'hello'...to Zillow.com!
What is Zillow.com? Launched on Feb. 8, 2006, Zillow.com is a home valuation tool. It is a beta real estate site, offering free, unbiased valuations on more than 40 million homes across the United States, with data on an additional 20 million homes. This includes most homes in the country, not just those for sale. |
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Who made it? Zillow.com is brought to you by the same people who launched and managed Expedia.com to its market leadership position, including founder and former Expedia CEO Richard Barton, and former Expedia Senior Vice President Lloyd Frink. The Board of Directors includes many people from Microsoft, Expedia, and other well-known organizations.
What does it do? Zillow.com allows you to enter a street address and find out a lot of information, including the current estimated value, in just a few seconds. All consumers need to do is enter an address – they are not asked to provide any other information.
Does it have anything other than home values? Yes! In addition to obtaining estimated home values, there is a wealth of other information including:
- Historical value changes for each home, charted over the past year, five years or ten years.
- Historical value changes for each home as compared to its surrounding ZIP code, city, state or the entire U.S.
- All comparable home sales in an area.
- Satellite, aerial and parcel views of many homes.
- Individual home data, such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, square footage, lot size, stories and year built
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Rich Barton
Chairman & CEO, Zillow |
"Until now, finding out a current market value of any home -- whether it's yours or one you want to bid on -- has been quite difficult," said Rich Barton, Zillow chairman and CEO. "We believe you shouldn't need a computer science degree or a real estate license to find out what a home is worth. That's why we created Zestimate values, providing free and instant valuations for millions of homes in America. This beta is just the beginning... Zillow will continue adding tools and services to empower consumers to make smarter real estate decisions." |
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How accurate is it? We entered some home addresses for properties we know very well. These houses were either recently purchased, refinanced, or are about to go on the market for sale. In all cases, we had a fairly good sense of the current market value as appraised by appraisal agencies, mortgage institutions, and realtors. For all but one of the houses we input, Zillow's Zestimator gave a price within $10,000 of the known market value. Click here for more information on Zillow.com's data coverage and accuracy.
Okay, but why not just ask a realtor? Look, no website can substitute for professional advice based on a one-to-one consultation. So you can't reyally compare Zillow.com to a professional realtor. But first, you won't always have access to a realtor especially if you are not really buying or selling your home. Secondly, all realtors prefer an educated customer. So before you ask your realtor to seek $1 million for your $400K home, you should do your homework. That's where you will find Zillow.com to offer a lot more than other websites that are driven by data on partial real estate listings, or are tainted by individual analysis and perspectives without access to the kind of data that Zillow.com has.
Why is Zillow.com unbiased? Zillow.com is not selling or buying homes – it has defined itself as an information portal with the main purpose of providing home owners with estimated home values driven by public records and subjected to rigorous statistical analysis by a team of experts. This puts Zillow.com head and shoulders above other sites that are either based on the real estate firm/agent's own listings or heavily tainted with a realtor's own market perspective.
Is it here to stay? Zillow.com is not a Mom & Pop operation. It is a $32 million venture, with 75 people now working at the Seattle headquarters. Zillow.com employs real estate professionals and statisticians for industry insights and accurate analysis of the zillions of data points used for estimating home values. All our analysis of the company's commitment and business strategy indicates that this website is not only here to stay, but it may one day grow to be an industry benchmark for realtors, home owners, buyers, and sellers alike! |
Zestimate values are updated daily, allowing homeowners to track the value of their largest investment, and giving both buyers and sellers an updated view of the real estate market and individual homes. Additionally, Zillow's My Zestimator™ tool allows users to refine the value of a home for their own use, based on changes or additions to that home.
(Zillow news release) |
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It can't be ALL good, can it? No, it isn't. Zillow.com (like any other database) is as good as the data it uses. Now, Zillow.com is getting home characteristics and other data from county records, tax assessments, and other government sources, to plug in the info into a proprietary algorithm which generates the estimates. As far as home characteristics and most other data are concerned, one can rely on county data. However, all counties don't store and publish complete data on homes. Some states also have privacy clauses that preclude Zillow.com from getting all the data they need. So, you'll find that Zillow.com's Zestimate:
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Works well for over 40 million homes, and works less accurately for another 20 million. The database is growing so the number of “well estimated” homes will continue to increase.
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Provides excellent data for homes in some states, but not so great estimates for homes in other states. For example, California and Virginia home owners will be delighted with the results but Washington DC and New York home owners may not have all that great information just yet.
What now? Just go to www.zillow.com and check it out. The website is very intuitive and if you are an educated, informed home owner, you can quickly spot the strengths and weaknesses. Look for the Zestimate, the Zindex, and other tools to find out more about your home or the home you are interested in buying! And don't forget to tell others about it – the more we push for a single source to become widely used, the easier it will be to benchmark and price homes in the future, so why not let it be Zillow.com? |
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