Zillow Zillow estimate cost us real money Carlsbad, California Internet
Our home is in a tract development with 4 floor plans. Zillow valued our home $70,000 - $110,000 less than other homes with exactly the same floor plan, despite our many upgrades and a premium lot (a view instead of a hill and neighbor behind us). The same floor plan across the street was valued $85,000 higher even though the lot originally sold for $70,000 less. Zillow claims no responsibility for their valuations and realtors know it is far from accurate, but house hunters still look at it as a guideline.
Potential buyers may or may not have known how unreliable Zillow estimates are but they still got the impression that something was wrong with our house because it was valued so much lower than other homes in our neighborhood. We finally got a buyer after a very similar home was listed for $55,000 more and went pending.
We are waiting to see the final selling amount but we have heard that it is selling for $30,000 more than our house and that the appraisal of our property came in higher than our selling price. I contacted Zillow about the inaccuracy but they were not interested in being accurate. They were patronizing and said they increased their estimate - by $2,000.
Zillow should be held accountable for their estimates. We lost real money because of them.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Surbiton
Surbiton,North Carolina,
Homeowners should be able to opt out of Zestimates
#2Consumer Comment
Sat, April 19, 2014
The poster outlines a clear example of how fundamentally flawed Zillows Zestimates are. When 17% of 100 million imposed Zestimates are more than 25% inaccurate then it is time that our elected representatives took action to protect homeowners from Zillows nonsense and introduced some form of Regulation. This Regulation could be as simple as enabling homeowners to register with a DoNotZestimate website to opt out in the same way as phone users can register with DoNotCall to opt out of unwanted spam phone calls.
What many homeowners and Realtors cannot understand is why Zillow refuse ALL requests to correct or delete obviously incorrect zestimates. What has Zillow to gain from continuing to publish inaccurate information that causes misery and potential financial damage to homeowners? The only answer has to be that the notoriety they receive from inaccuracy generates more users to the Zillow website and therefore generates more revenues. If this is so then the FTC should be all over Zillow and impose fines and penalties that can be used to compensate homeowners like the original poster who have suffered real financial damage as a consequence of an imposed and unwanted inaccurate Zestimate.