Zestimator

My son emailed this link to Zillow’s Zestimator this morning. I also read the article in the Wall Street Journal about how amazing this site is.

I must admit the comments in the Wall Street Journal saying this site would do to Realtors what Expedia did to Travel Agents got my attention.

I have never thought Real Estate Brokers would be indispensable because a good broker does so many more things besides just pricing a property. It’s always the old rule “you get what you pay for.”

Here are the results of my “test run” with the zestimator:

A condo I own in San Diego on 6th Ave, facing Balboa Park was priced at $815,000 – $100,000 more than what it is actually worth.
A property a client of mine owns in North County San Diego was valued at $949,000 – It’s actually worth $1,300,000.
A home I own in Desert Hot Springs was valued $267,000, which is almost exactly correct.

The above demonstrates that individuals using Zillow alone could be disappointed, or possibly confused. For example, my condo on Balboa Park is identical to all the others in the building, except for the floor it is on, and the interior design. But estimates vary by up to $200,000, even between condos on the same floor. Would spending $10,000 on remodeling raise my condo’s value by $100,000?

Zillow brings together a lot of interesting information in a pretty package, but it has some work to do before I retire.