Real Estate Search – Zillow and RealestateABC
There has been much buzz about some of the new real estate search engines coming online. I have to admit, they are fun to use and I recommend you go ahead give them a shot. For an earlier review of both these products, check out Tech Crunch.
Search engines such as Zillow and RealestateABC seem to be geared toward those trying to guage market value of a particular property. This of course is critical when it comes to buying and selling your home. However, you should know that they are pulling information from tax records which don’t always reflect accurate market data.
For example, in Foxberry Farms, a Lundgren development of approximately 150 upper bracket homes in Medina, Minnesota, I found that the home values estiblished by the County Assessor’s office was anywhere from 1-2% below market value to 25% below market value. (BTW, wouldn’t it be nice to live in the home that’s being taxed at 25% under market value?)
I ran an estimate of my home value on both Zillow and RealestateABC. It was interesting to see the results. Both were significantly inflated from what my home is worth in the market today.
It’s important to know this because in the slowing market that we’re in today, sellers still have an unrealistically high expectation as to what they think their home is worth. It doesn’t help having services like Zillow and RealestateABC inflate everyone’s expectations.
Since so much is available these days via the internet, people think they can become the expert on home pricing. It is a difficult challenging thing and something that is very difficult to do just from a mathematical model. You need to be in the field each day buying and selling homes to have a feel for pricing. And even then, it’s difficult for professional real estate agents to get the price right.
