zillow - recent sales less than zestimate

[duncan]

I just viewed the recent sales in 77007 in the map view on zillow.com

Ideally I would like to see the MLS offer prices and the final sales prices. But I don't know how to get that data.

MLS offer price - a number computed from comparable sales or guessed

Zestimate - an algorithmically derived value that probably has a huge error margin

Sales prices on zillow - where do they come from?

Is it significant that the sales prices on zillow are consistantly less than the zestimate which are usually less than the MLS offer price?

Thanks,

Duncan

[mpbro]

Ideally I would like to see the MLS offer prices and the final sales prices. But I don't know how to get that data.

MLS offer price - a number computed from comparable sales or guessed

Zestimate - an algorithmically derived value that probably has a huge error margin

Sales prices on zillow - where do they come from?

Texas is a non-disclosure state, so sales prices of homes in private-party sales are not disclosed to the public. Foreclosure sales prices are. The sales you see on zillow are all foreclosures. So it makes sense that they'd be considerably lower than the "zestimate".

For an MLS feed, ask a realtor--they can give you this information. The Houston association of realtors actually does release MLS sales to HCAD annually. Until recently, you could download bulk sales from pdata.hcad.org. VoxProperty.com displays these data up to 2005.

[OkieEric]

I saw someone link to www.realdata.net on here once before - I'm not sure what the deal is, but I know that several of the sales prices I've seen on there are 100% accurate. Not sure those 2-3 mean that all of the data is valid (I've seen some strange ones on there), but it seems like a good resource to me

[mpbro]

I saw someone link to www.realdata.net on here once before - I'm not sure what the deal is, but I know that several of the sales prices I've seen on there are 100% accurate. Not sure those 2-3 mean that all of the data is valid (I've seen some strange ones on there), but it seems like a good resource to me

Heh-heh, I've heard the guy who runs it has an MLS feed... There really is no "law" governing disclosure of MLS sales. If a realtor tells me (non-realtor) a sales price, and I go and publish it somewhere else, all HAR can do is censure the realtor.

There is a disclosure bill in the state senate, and I've heard that it passed and is on to the house, but I don't know the details.

[bachanon]

the sale price of my home from 2002 is exactly correct on zillow.

what do you realtors and investors think of zillow? it's telling me my house is worth a lot more than i thought.

[jm1fd]

the sale price of my home from 2002 is exactly correct on zillow.

what do you realtors and investors think of zillow? it's telling me my house is worth a lot more than i thought.

Do you think HCAD is accurate? HCAD and Zillow are using the same techniques/data with Zillow possibly using even less data since, here in Texas, large amounts of sales price data isn't readily accessible to anyone other than the fluffy bunnys. Zillow may be good to look at general trends for general areas of town, but its junk when it comes to valuing specific properties accurately. It would be nigh impossible for them to collect enough data to accurately value every property in town.

Pull up the nice houses and the crappy houses in your 'hood on Zillow. Are the nice ones valued substantially higher than the crappy ones? They sure aren't in my 'hood.

Edited December 3, 2007 by jm1fd

[crunchtastic]

I would have to agree with Mr. Sunshine.

Zillow for trends, for particulars, no.

Interestingly, the last house I sold I got exactly the zillow amount. Granted, they're nice and round, but....

Edited December 3, 2007 by crunchtastic

[rps324]

HCAD has everything to do with how well, or how poorly, someone fights their taxes and very little to do with real market value.

I don't find Zillow helpful at all. Of course I have access to the real sales data on the Realtor side of HAR. It also includes how much of the price was a seller contribution to the buyer's closing costs. That's important, at least in more moderate price brackets. A good portion of the sales price could be buyers closing costs, which artifically inflates the sales price by a few thousand.

Just this week a client asked me about a house in Glenbrook that was on Zillow for sale at a very low price. I know the lady that lives there and she is definitely not selling, they will have to carry her out of that house horizontally. She is definitely not a computer person and didn't put it on there. A relative that she is on the outs with may have put it on there as a prank, who knows. But that didn't give me a very good impression of Zillow.

Edit: On HCAD are we talking about the appraised values or the sales data? The comments above are in reference to the appraised values.

Edited December 3, 2007 by rps324

[cottonmather0]

Yeah, Zillow is not accurate at all. Great for finding house data in a better organized interface than HCAD, but not good at all when it comes to property values.

[bachanon]

i knew i could count on you guys. thanks for the info.

[cla]

I checked my own neighborhood, which has just recently completed building out and the prices on zillow weren't even close. The zestimate on my own house was 70K lower than I actually paid, and about 65K lower than what my next door neighbor paid. I guess because that whole area is new construction, the closest comps were smaller, older homes.

[mpbro]

Zillow just takes a universe of comparable sales, automatically adjusting the comps such that they "match" the target property. The zestimate is a weighted average of these comps. Having developed my own tool, I can tell you that the lack of actual public sales data is a problem in Texas. HAR releases the previous year's sales to HCAD, so it's not hopeless in Houston, but the comps are a bit "old". You'll find that zillow (and other tools) perform pretty well in areas where the land values do not change rapidly (in (x,y)) and where structure attributes are similar (age, quality, etc.).

Inside the loop Houston breaks this model. If you move two miles in any direction from West U., land values can decrease by 50% or more. You have mega mansions and junked bungalows next to one another. For older homes of the same age, one structure may be worth ten times another structure if one is crappy and the other is fixed up. It's really hard to get a computer to unravel the "true value".

I actually spent a lot of time with the guy who runs blockshopper.com in improving my automatic valuation model (AVM). They licensed it for use in St Louis. Since moving to California, I don't update voxproperty often, but I recently got around to updating the Houston comp tool. For shits and giggles, I would be interested to see how it performs on your properties, relative to zillow.

To use the tool, go to voxproperty.com, find the target address, and click on "Comparable Properties". Here is an example.

[KatieDidIt]

Zillow just takes a universe of comparable sales, automatically adjusting the comps such that they "match" the target property. The zestimate is a weighted average of these comps. Having developed my own tool, I can tell you that the lack of actual public sales data is a problem in Texas. HAR releases the previous year's sales to HCAD, so it's not hopeless in Houston, but the comps are a bit "old". You'll find that zillow (and other tools) perform pretty well in areas where the land values do not change rapidly (in (x,y)) and where structure attributes are similar (age, quality, etc.).

Inside the loop Houston breaks this model. If you move two miles in any direction from West U., land values can decrease by 50% or more. You have mega mansions and junked bungalows next to one another. For older homes of the same age, one structure may be worth ten times another structure if one is crappy and the other is fixed up. It's really hard to get a computer to unravel the "true value".

I actually spent a lot of time with the guy who runs blockshopper.com in improving my automatic valuation model (AVM). They licensed it for use in St Louis. Since moving to California, I don't update voxproperty often, but I recently got around to updating the Houston comp tool. For shits and giggles, I would be interested to see how it performs on your properties, relative to zillow.

To use the tool, go to voxproperty.com, find the target address, and click on "Comparable Properties". Here is an example.

Zillows says we are 300k more than what we bought it for, Vox says we are 200k less than what we bought for it. Hope HCAD sees VOX, not Zillow!!!!

[mpbro]

Zillows says we are 300k more than what we bought it for, Vox says we are 200k less than what we bought for it. Hope HCAD sees VOX, not Zillow!!!!

Wow, sounds like you got a pretty sweet deal. Why do you think you are coming up so low? Being surrounded by expensive newbuilds will do it.