I wish I had a dime for every time I have heard someone mistake a Zillow “Zestimate” for market value.

Zestimates are interesting and fun, but often do not reflect actual market value. They are not appraisals.  They are not a CMA — Competitive Market Analysis.  They are not a BPO — Broker’s Price Opinion. They aren’t necessarily based on much of anything that would determine how much a willing, ready, and able buyer would pay — and that’s what market value is.

I’ve seen it happen over and over, and the nice people at Rain City Guide see it too. An estimate on a recently foreclosed home, for example, probably is nothing more than the balance of the owed mortgage. Imagine the shock of thinking your neighbor’s house just sold for 10% less than prevailing neighborhood prices, when the “buyer” was just the mortgage holder. Alternatively, home owners may think to themselves that they have “insider information” that makes their home substantially more valuable than Zillow said:  ”they don’t know about my latest remodeling,” etc..

If you want a back-of-napkin idea of what homes in your neighborhood are worth, spend 10 minutes poking around Realtor.com and seeing what’s available. Depending where you live, you might be able to figure out actual sale prices using data from your County’s Recorder or Assessor. County data will be very accurate, as long as you remember that values do change over time and condition does matter. This sort of information is probably sufficient for anybody who does not need to sell their real estate. However, if you want current, accurate data, that you can use to set a fair price that will be met in a reasonable period of time, call your local Realtor.

I am available for CMA presentations and a limited number of sales listings. I would rather do relatively few listings well than dozens badly! Yes, I do short sales too. For more information or to set up an appointment, please click the “Contact Me!” link in the sidebar, or call the number at the top of this page.