Zillow Zestimate

[Lekisha Cole]

Is using Zillow Zestimate accurate? Where can I get estimates of homes other than Zillow?

[Robert Taylor]

As a broker myself (thus with mls access) who's constantly "comping" my own projects as well as many more properties that have come up as potential purchases, I have to say that the times I did see what the "zestimate" was on a place I had comped myself, not only was it ALWAYS off but it was usually well off and I saw no rhyme or reason as to why or what might be the reason for that, some were way high, some far too low, etc. 

I occasionally stop by another forum like this, but for realtors where a lot of high volume realtors talk shop (I personally pretty much just handle my own projects, but these realtors work with LOTS of buyers/sellers) and there are enough stories on there of the various hassles and downright hell that yet another ridiculously inaccurate zestimate has caused yet another realtor. Taking on and selling a listing or working with a buyer is a lot more time intensive than a lot of people realize, so many things pop up and the very high volume, full service realtors usually put in some crazy hours each week, working 80+ hours a week in especially busy weeks is common and they need to manage their time to the minute, so having to waste not just minutes, but sometimes hours and hours just to undo whatever damage or screwup those stupid zestimates caused this time drives them insane when otherwise they're counting the minutes spent on each task that week!

@Lee L. has some excellent points, especially the part about comps, or being really dead on accurate with comps, being an art-or I'd say 50/50 art and science (or really stats and figures I suppose is more accurate) 

@Mike H. also has some good info, although he mentions "appraisers" a few times and I'm not sure if he specifically means people who are actual appraisers or not, but I'd say that the realtor he mentions who pulls her comps from properties so far off from what he's looking at, so that makes me wonder why he's still using that realtor. I can see the "one in a million" case where some ridiculously unique property can only be comped against some old sale or something out of the immediate area, but otherwise that makes no sense.

Lee's advice of knowing the area and I mean that immediate area as well as the city and the entire metro area is huge. One example I have is a home I renovated recently, an older home in an area of 99% older (1900 to 1930s) homes that had 4 bedrooms when I bought it. Three of them were decently sized compared to homes in that area and the 4th bedroom was quite small with a rather useless layout, so I combined it with the 3rd bedroom and made a master suite with a full master bath. 

Now this was in an area where you'll find very few families with more than 2 kids, in fact you won't find all that many families with kids at all, its a lot of singles, childless couples, empty nesters, etc. So, losing a 4th bedroom and gaining a sweet master suite where among other things, I had all new 3/4" PEX water supply lines run all the way from the meter to the two all new upstairs bathrooms, so you had the "shower of power" while many of the neighbors had well kept older homes, but each morning had to shower under whatever dribbled out of those old, clogged up galvanized pipes!

Yet, had I been out in one of the many suburbs here, including some within just a few miles, where its one family with kids after the next, going from 4 bedrooms down to 3 would normally have people thinking I was insane!