Zillow Zestimates, are they accurate?

These days many folks check out their home online, or a property they are looking to purchase, to find an estimate of value. Zillow provides these national in a format they copyrighted and call Zestimates. If you read the Zillow forums on Zestimates you’ll find a lot of angry home owners disputing the value. Recently I went to a seminar held by Zillow themselves to try to get an answer. Zestimates were the very first topic of discussion at the seminar, and from a Zillow representative I heard these words, “Zillow Zestimates are wrong by more than $30,000 dollars 30% of the time.” Now, most people will agree this is not an accurate enough figure to make any kind of an offer on a home!  Zestimates should not be used to determine hard values, but are useful to put you in the ballpark of value on a home in your area. The Zestimates are useful, but not the whole story on a house, not even close. In order to get the whole story, you need a top local agent with experience.

I hope I can help.

For an alternate search option for Portland, try mine. I believe it is as useful as Zillow’s and is – as I’ve discovered- more accurate and up-to-date.