It looks like Zillow is now allowing users to provide their own data to help get homes closer to the appraised value. It seems that there is a good deal of remodeling and modifications being made to homes that are not showing up on the tax records that Zillow gets their information from.
Irony would be the tax assessors looking for modifications done in the Zillow database and then following up and raising the taxes on these properties. The law of unitended consequences at work.
Zillow uses a combination of proprietary algorithms and public records like assessors’ valuations and sales filings to arrive at the valuations they place on the 68 million U.S. homes in the company’s database.
“We’ve received loads of feedback since our launch from homeowners who want to be able to publish things they know about their own homes, such as a kitchen remodel, a view or deck addition, that we aren’t able to glean from public records,” said Rich Barton, Zillow co-founder and CEO, according to a company statement.
One Zillow user who found the service’s listings weren’t entirely accurate was none other than Barton himself. Barton, who has his home for sale, became the site’s first user to make his property offering more accurate.
“In my case the public records say that my house has 2.25 bathrooms, when there are really 3.5,” Barton said on his blog, “Zillow now presents my facts side-by-side with the public record facts. Additionally, I was able to publish My Estimate of my home’s value letting any prospective buyers know that we remodeled” via TechWeb
Zillow Blog on the changes.
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The rule of unintended consequences. Mr. Barton could get a visit from his local tax assessor with a new tax bill for his improvements (extra bedroom) which increased the value of his home. There could be no objection because he attested to the improvements. Luckily, it's for sale so the new owners will probably get that bill.
The ability to update your home features is limited by Zillow to specific questions and drop downs. This will keep exaggerated claims to a minimum but I believe Zillow will get enough unverifiable data that this may cause an issue when getting a Zestimate on a house surrounded by other homes "updated" by the public.
Also those finer details that owners put into their remodel jobs are not revealed, there is just no place to put it. While this keeps the data a little more solid I think owners will feel this needs to be accounted for. There is really no way to make this perfect for all parties.
It's like finding someone on a dating site, until you meet them in person and really get to know them you don't have all the facts and loose many of the nuances.
BETTER THAN ZILLOW: http://valueyourhome.realestatejournal.com/cvyh/r…
I think this is such a great idea. There have been so many times when my appraiser hasn't been available to give me comps and when I use Zillow 99% of the time the home is way overvalued or way undervalued.
This might help out the values but Zillow is still just a tool for sellers in the beginning of the sales process eventually most sellers will hire a pro.
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