Famous houses and property values on Zillow |
Last night I was talking to a client of ours who owns a few rental houses in the neighborhood and he mentioned tracking values on Zillow. I’ve read several positive things about Zillow but never really spent much time on the site. It’s one of the best real world uses I’ve seen of integrating mapping and 3D images with its bird’s eye views (only certain houses). Useful for home buyers, sellers and owners.
Zillow uses Microsoft Virtual Earth and its as easy as entering in an address. They even have a page dedicated to famous houses like The Osbournes MTV house (pictured above) in Beverly Hills, now at an estimated value of $8,512,044. Remember those neighbors they were throwing the ham at? Their home is worth $7.5 million. This isn’t exactly the low rent district in Beverly Hills.
Remember the Brady Bunch house? It’s valued at $1.1 million. Zillow values the Happy Days home at $1.38 million.
Zillow is an impressive site and an easy bookmark candidate. The values Zillow provides seem a bit on the high side, but not completely unrealistic in the areas that I checked. The information isn’t completely up to date either. For example, it said our home had an attached garage. We haven’t had one of those for several years (we converted our garage to an office in the 90’s). How accurate is the information for your home, business and/or rental house?
Did this post make you go hmm?
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...
I review zillow here. The home values were sometimes way over the top, even in our area that is experiencing amazing growth. It’s about 15% annually, not 100%. And I also noted the outdated nature of the basic information. Great idea, if they could get all the data right.
Comment by Sterling Camden — June 23, 2006 @ 2:28 pm PST
I think you stripped my anchor tag: http://www.chipsquips.com/index.php?tag=zillow
Comment by Sterling Camden — June 23, 2006 @ 2:29 pm PST
Stripped where? From the signature space? Query strings should be allowed there.
Comment by TDavid — June 23, 2006 @ 4:15 pm PST
In my first comment, I used an anchor tag around the word “here” — but no link. Maybe I typed something wrong.
Comment by Sterling Camden — June 23, 2006 @ 4:41 pm PST
Hi there, I just came across this and I work at Zillow. Zillow.com is a beta site and as such, has more data and is more accurate in some areas than others. A chart on the site lays out how much data Zillow has for an area, and how accurate Zestimates are for every county in the U.S.:
http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracy.htm
We will add to this chart as we improve things. Also, if you think the data is inaccurate or want to add in a recent remodel, addition, etc you can do this on a personal worksheet from any home details page (”refine value of home”). This should help you determine a more accurate value.
Comment by Amy B — June 23, 2006 @ 9:48 pm PST
Hello Amy B - Firstly, thanks for your reply. I might be reading more into your response than I should, so if my reply below sounds a bit aggressive, please keep that in mind.
I understand Zillow is in beta — it says that in the screenshot right next to the logo above and on every zillow page. And there is no “if I think” the data is accurate in our area which we are very familiar with, I know it is. One of our businesses (offline) involves working with appraisers every single day. Your values are off by 10-15% in this area alone and there’s no way we’re going to fix all of them for you. Also I have a friend who lives in Appleton, Wisconsin and in his case none of the entire zip code where he lives has any values (your zestimates link gives it two stars in that state).
As for our home, which according to your own zestimate link above is rated 4 stars (best), it is listed correctly in the public records (no attached garage) but not with your service so wherever you are mining the data is wrong. Again, not our problem fixing your data.
I think Zillow is a decent service for estimations, but it’s not accurate and certainly not something professionals can use except for very rough estimates and your official company response to the people using the service shouldn’t be: it’s beta and we know it’s not completely accurate, you can fix it for us by doing ABC.
If you want to pay the users to fix data, then that sounds reasonable, but otherwise good luck getting volunteer help from others fixing thousands of detailed house information that was mined from bad data sources. I gave your site volunteer help already just writing about the service here and now. That’s the best you can realistically expect.
I would be much more careful where and when hauling out the “it’s beta” line.
Comment by TDavid — June 24, 2006 @ 10:32 am PST
Yeah, “beta” is the new “version 1.0″. When your business is about the data, you need to get the data right first.
I’m also in a four-star area, and my house’s value is predicted at just over twice what we paid for it a year and a half ago. We also just took out a second, which involved a new appraisal. Oddly, other houses in the area seem to be valued about right. So, I don’t know where Zillow is getting its data for our house, but it isn’t from any public records on the property itself.
Comment by Sterling Camden — June 24, 2006 @ 10:55 am PST
TDavid, you’re right that Zillow valuations are estimates — a free service designed as a research tool. I think you may have misunderstood my intention in commenting though — I wasn’t asking you to fix the data for us (there is actually not a way to currently do this — I was referring to a personal worksheet where you can come up with a private revised estimate). I also was not trying to hide behind the “beta” label. My intention was to be honest and acknowledge that Zestimates and data in some areas need work, we’re working on it, and meanwhile we’re trying to be as transparent as possible by posting the % of homes covered, margin of error, etc down to the county level (click on each state in the chart to see the county ratings).
Feedback like what you are giving is very valuable to us at this early stage — thank you.
Comment by Amy B — June 24, 2006 @ 12:23 pm PST
[…] commented positively on the site Zillow before, with my only serious criticism being their zestimates can be way off. A fact which has led to legal challenges for the company in the […]
Pingback by Zillow is telling prospective employees they build profitable solutions, and yet they aren’t profitable » Make You Go Hmm — September 20, 2007 @ 2:17 am PST
Zillow “Guess-Idiots” appear to rely on public tax records that in some cases haven’t been updated in twenty-five years. The zestimator is a sketchy tool to rely on. I believe it’s best to use a Professional Realtor when appraising property.
Comment by Ron Asteak — September 29, 2007 @ 5:59 pm PST
I have had a look at the Zillow property system for a while and cant wait for it to be offered for UK. It will be hugely useful just to show general property info, irrespective of accurate pricing info. You guys should consider yourselves lucky!
Comment by sonia — December 14, 2007 @ 7:28 am PST
Actually, it appears that very lately Zillow has become more accurate, at least in our area. From being off by half a million a year ago to being within ten or twenty thousand of recent appraisals now, I’d say they’re improving.
Comment by Sterling Camden — December 14, 2007 @ 10:02 am PST
Zillow Data Shows that foreclosures are moving up-market. For the second month in a row Cheezburger Network tops Zillow.com in Seattle 2.0’s monthly ranking of Seattle area Internet startups.
Comment by Simon — October 17, 2009 @ 12:31 am PST