Understanding Your Zillow Zestimate…and why it’s good to know about it.
Whether you are selling or buying a San Mateo County home, there is one overriding issue that is of paramount importance to everyone: What is the home worth? What is its value? A Zestimate may provide a very unique opinion of value.
Zillow Zestimates Provide a Very Unique Opinion of Value
One estimate of value is the Zestimate, a term coined by a fascinating company named Zillow, to denote their unique estimate of the value of a home. San Mateo County home sellers and buyers often use Zillow to justify and defend their respective positions. The seller, who wants the highest price, welcomes a high value and the buyer who wants to buy at the lowest price possible, points to the Zestimate when possible, in defense of a low offer.
Use a Zestimate to Look at a San Mateo County Home through the Other Guy’s Eyes
Regardless of your agenda, Zillow as a resource is an excellent way of looking at a San Mateo County home from the other guy’s vantage point. While millions of people use Zillow as a tool, granted to further their own agenda, it is not an appraisal and cannot be used to get a loan. Even Zillow admits you can’t use the Zestimate instead of a professional appraiser because it s a computer generated estimate of a San Mateo County home’s value based upon available data that may be incomplete or inaccurate. Those are Zillow’s words, not those of some detractor. They freely admit the Zestimate does not consider all of the real estate market intricacies and nuisances that can affect the actual fair market value of a home.
What is a Zillow Zestimate?
A Zestimate is a mathematical calculation based on a formula using what statisticians call “a proprietary algorithm” that does not factor in an on-site physical inspection and does not take into account special features, location, and market conditions. Zillow acknowledges that variations in price can occur because of negotiating factors, closing costs, timing and the motivations of the seller and buyer.
San Mateo County Buyers and Sellers Should Use Zillow as One Resource
We encourage buyers, sellers, and homeowners use Zillow’s estimate or to be accurate Zestimate to supplement their research with information from other reliable resources:
- Getting a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) from a San Mateo real estate agent
- Getting an appraisal from a professional fee appraiser
- Visiting the house and observing its surroundings
When is a Zillow Zestimate Most Accurate?
Zillow is most accurate when it has a lot of data points on sales of similar homes recently sold. Luxury and unique homes are very difficult to estimate. At best, in my opinion, those are just a wild guesses. Older data is less relevant than new data. For example, today lenders do not allow professional appraisers to use sale comparables of similar homes more than 90 days old without a compelling reason.
Zillow is a Good First Step for San Mateo Home Buyers and Sellers
For the average consumer, Zillow is a beginning toward developing an understanding of what’s going on in the market, but it’s only a first step. Zillow has done the research for you by gathering incredibly huge amounts of data from many sources and creating something unique that the public sources don’t provide – a Zestimate of your home based on the public data.
Need Help Interpreting Your Zestimate?
We have two tools we can offer. The first is our San Mateo County Home Valuation tool which pulls data directly from the MLS. This report, which is sectioned by zip code, will tell you what homes in your neighborhood actually sold for (denoted on the red ID’s in the left side of the report). There are also several other data points this report monitors (Asking vs. Selling Price; Time on Market; Number of Homes for Sale vs. Sold) as well.
If you’d like to get a report specific to your neighborhood, click on the Your Home’s Value button below to get started. All we need is a few basic pieces of information about your home and your email.
Want a More in Depth Analysis of Your Home’s Value?
If you’d like to go even further into the analysis of your San Mateo home’s value, send us an email at info@LivingWellinSanMateo.com or call us at (650) 655-2500 to schedule a no hassle, no obligation consultation. We’ll come out, take a look at your house and help you determine what your home would sell for in today’s market.
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Raymond Stoklosa, Chela Stoklosa and Rebecca Williamson are Realtors with The RayChel Realty Group specializing in Santa Clara and San Mateo Real Estate.