Technology and Home Valuations
Technology can be a fantastic aide throughout your home buying or selling process when used correctly. But, if the information provided by the technology isn’t fully understood, you run the risk of making serious errors or adding unrealistic expectations to your experience. The area I see this most prevalent in deals with evaluating the worth of a home. Sites like Zillow.com and Cyberhomes are two of the more popular examples that I most often hear clients refer to. Both of these sites discuss the short-comings of their estimations - if you use either, it is in your best interest to understand they provide nothing more than a ballpark guess at what the selling price of a home should be. Zillow’s explanation can be found on their Data Coverage and Zestimate® Accuracy page. Cyberhomes explanation can be found amongst their Question and Answer section titled Are Cyberhomes valuations the same as an appraisal prepared by a licensed professional appraiser?
June 28th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
There’s another real estate help site by PropertyMaps that’s a MLS/RealtyTrac/Google Maps mashup that has accurate information on a good looking interface. I’ve been using it a lot more lately.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:06 am
Brett Shaw from Cyberhomes:
Thanks for addressing Cyberhomes. You are absolutely correct in calling them “estimates.” While these figures should just be used as a starting point, they are getting more accurate. Cyberhomes, for example, is owned by Fidelity National Financial and has a large family of companies from which to aggregate our data. Currently we have more than 100 million records and are adding approximately 575,000 new ownership records each month, verified from the original source.
You can also edit a specific home’s facts and adjust for the local market conditions (this, of course, takes a little knowledge and frightening truthfulness) to get a more accurate and immediate new evaluation.