Once you get the home fever, it usually doesn’t stop until you have a home in your possession. Not surprisingly, we closed on a house last week and have been busy cleaning, renovating, and getting the house ready for us to move in. But what does this have to do with Zillow?
When we first started to talk about buying a house, I naturally went on Google and looked for sites that showed homes that were for sale. The best site I found for this was Zillow.
Zillow aggregates data on real estate and puts it all into one nice search engine. You can literally get data on millions of homes in the United States at the click of a mouse, all presented in the same easy-to-follow format.
Below are some of the features I love about Zillow:
It includes past sale and list prices of the home
Much to the shock of some people that the price they paid for their home is on public record, Zillow aggregates this public record data and makes it easy to see what a home was sold for in the past. Besides that, it also includes list prices, list price reductions, and removal of listing of a house.
Again, some people are shocked that anyone in the world can log on, punch in their address, and find out how much they paid for their house, it’s useful data if you are considering buying a home. If you are paying $50k more than any home in your area has sold for in the past few years, it’s going to be harder to get that kind of money when you turn around and try to sell the house. Maybe I’m strange, but I find it fun to look at different neighborhoods, cities, and types of houses and see how much they have sold for in the past.
You can easily jump from house to house
Zillow has an awesome setup where at the bottom of each house’s listing in their database they have a neighborhood view. On this neighborhood view you can see other houses estimated value (or list price if they are on the market) and click on them to view their entry in the database. It’s super easy way to view a lot of homes in the same neighborhood, and can be incredibly useful (and potentially time-consuming as you become obsessed with viewing home data…)
Zillow produces “Zestimate” values for homes that are estimates based on their data
Zillow produces estimated home values, or “Zestimates” for homes based on their data. They also use the data to create trends of what the home value was historically based on whatever algorithms they have set up.
As a data geek I LOVE this particular tool on Zillow. There is a drawback: outdated information. The less a home has been bought and sold in the past decade, the less accurate the data Zillow will have and in turn, the less accurate the Zestimate will be. The home we bought had not been sold for 30+ years and therefore had very inaccurate data. The Zestimate was well below the price we paid and WELL below the list price. The reason was that it was not factoring in 900 finished square feet or the fourth bedroom.
For homes that have fully updated data on Zillow, this is a very useful tool. Remember that it won’t always be accurate, though, unless Zillow has fully updated information.
One final note: When you are in the market to buy a home and have started to look at houses with a Realtor, rely on the MLS for the most updated information on houses that are for sale. The reason is that the MLS is updated very frequently while Zillow may have a home listed for sale that actually already has an offer (or may even have been closed on already). With that being said, I always checked the Zillow listing of homes we were looking at and ironically ended up purchasing a home that Zillow had almost no data on because it hadn’t been for sale for decades.
If you haven’t heard of Zillow before, I hope you enjoy browsing their database and hopefully you will find some useful information.
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My wife and I used Zillow when we bought our house a few years ago. Our realtor actually encouraged us to use it along with the info she gave us so we coul have as much information as needed. It’s a great tool when you’re looking to buy. Hope you’re having fun with the move in!
@FrugalRules Nice! It’s definitely a great tool for additional information or a second look at a house that has come on the market, as well as comparing all the houses within a block or two.
I love Zillow. I love looking at what houses are worth. Sometimes it is wrong though, as for some reason it says our house is worth way less than all of our neighbors, even though our house is the nicest on the block. It urks me as to why that is!
@SenseofCents That’s too bad! Ours is way understimated as well because it hasn’t been bought/sold at all over the past 3 decades. Single owner. Hoping that our sales data will change it. My Dad freaked when I first gave him the address and our offer price, but he didn’t realize it was missing 900 of the finished square feet, a bedroom, and a bathroom haha.
It looks brilliant, unfortunately they only do the US from what I can see :(
@MonsterPiggyBank well, from my understanding they are a start-up so perhaps they will expand in the future?? At least for your sake!
Property sales are public record and important to check so that you don’t overpay. This is a great site, and I happen to love words that start with Z.
Zillow is awesome for all of the reasons you mentioned. I love how it shows the sales history of a property and past sales prices!!!
@Holly at ClubThrifty Yes and it’s very easy to use. You can jump around from house to house and see what comparables have sold for. It’s a great tool.
I love Zillow. I am always checking out the new houses on the market by us.
@OneSmartDollar I could waste a lot of time on there, that’s for sure!
I like everything about zillow but their zestimates. . One thing that I find really dumb about them is that the zestimate will gradually go up the more times that property is viewed. I’ve experimented with this for many houses and have found it to be true. And the zestimate goes up quite a bit which is silly. For example, just by viewing a property once a day for a month long I got the zestimate to go up $20,000, while the properties around it did nothing in the area of selling, going on the market, etc. It’s zestimate for my house is $170,000. Yet no other house in the neighborhood is close to that most are in the 120,000-140,000 range, which is actually what my house is worth.
I do really love it for seeing what houses are for sale in the area and getting an idea of how houses are selling
@Em23 I agree that the zestimates can be pretty off sometimes, depending on what data they’re using/etc. Our home’s value on Zillow is probably off by a good $20-30,000, so we only use that data as a general guide.
@Em23 Very interesting to hear about the Zestimates. Ultimately they have a very wide range for their Zestimates so that is usually a better indicator than the actual price that they put up. At least you aren’t on the other end of the valuation, they have ours WAY undervalued because they don’t have updated statistics (hasn’t been sold for over 3 decades…hard to believe a single owner for that long!)
That’s pretty cool, I hope they come to Canada at some point! Very useful information.
@OutlierModel Yeah I would imagine Canada is a logical second step for them. I feel bad that you guys don’t have something like it!
My in-laws are realtors and have access to the information on the MLS system, so we’re able to check that out when house hunting or trying to sell. It’s got a lot of stuff on there that a lot of people don’t realize is there, like historical listing prices, price drops, as well as a lot of the information that you mentioned that appears on Zillow in relation to past sales prices/etc. I don’t think people realize just how much of their data is actually public information that can be found on any county’s website, or often on Zillow.
I’m like you, I love to go into our neighborhood, check out values, property taxes, etc and see just what others paid historically, what their houses are valued at now, etc. Having all that information was helpful when we appealed our property taxes a couple of years back.
@moneymatters You appealed your property taxes? That’s pretty awesome! Have heard many complain that they kept the house values high for property tax purposes even tho the actual value has dropped.
@DC @ Young Adult Money Yeah, we saved almost 14% on our property taxes – or about $360 – by appealing to the county tax office. Here’s a post talking about what we did (this was a couple of years ago). http://www.biblemoneymatters.com/how-to-save-hundreds-of-dollars-on-your-tax-bill-by-challenging-your-property-taxes/
@moneymatters Awesome, thanks for the reference. We’ll see what they value our house at for property tax purposes. I have a bad feeling we won’t have as much luck in an appeal, tho, unless it is far above the appraisal price.
@DC @ Young Adult Money Since you just bought your home the county’s tax value will probably be pretty close to what you paid for it. For us, the first couple of years were ok, but as the market tanked and we lost tens of thousands in our home’s value, the county didn’t update our home’s tax value in response to dropping prices/values. Our home value at the tax office was off by at least 20-30k if i remember.
@moneymatters That’s quite a bit, glad you got it fixed.
my favorite part of zillow is their iPhone app- it can search homes in your nearby location which is expeially interesting when you are traveling in areas your not specifically familiar with.
just a couple months ago I was in the Florida pan handle and was very surprised at how much homes were being sold for in the nearby area.
love zillow, love the app
@mattchesla It’s also on Droid ;)
It looks like an amazing program. I love researching real estate prices and looking at homes. I wonder if the price that a house actually sold for is public record in Canada, considering all of the privacy laws we have.
@TacklingOurDebt It’s interesting how much public information is available in the US, though I’m not surprised. It would be useful in Canada if the information was public.
I am a houseaholic too! I even check Airbnb for furnishing ideas (from real people, not design magazines!). I updated my flat in the UK on a similar site, so that people can see the features, there is even an awesome option you can tick “I am willing to hear offers you may want to make, even though my house is not for sale”. If the price is right, who knows?
@RFIndependence Zillow has that offer as well! I don’t know how well the “make me move” option works, though. In that case the seller has all the leverage. Not worth making an offer, imo.
I look at Zillow frequently too. It is fun to see what is available and how much things are going for especially in my vacation home market.
@Money Life and More Oh vacation market would be fun to look at.
That site is awesome. I wish it was around when I purchased my home 5 years ago, although I’m sure most of the data would have been pretty wacky due to the dramatic drop in prices at the time.
This could be a very useful tool when I begin to look for investment properties.
However, it does feel a little Big Brotherish. I always new the data was public, I had to go to the county office once and look for hours on their computers. However, now it’s much more in your face.
@JustinatTheFrugalPath I don’t think it’s any more Big Brotherish than it was in the past. It’s just organized in an easier way. I don’t necessarily agree with the laws that say this data needs to be made public, but it is what it is.
ZOMG! I love that site. It’s fun to daydream, even though I’m not going to move any time soon.
@seedebtrun It’s a ton of fun!
Whoa, that map feature is pretty darn cool! It doesn’t work in Canada, which is probably a good thing because I know I would waste a whole lotta time on it!
@Ugifter Haha I’m sure something will be available in Canada some day.
Hi there,
Russ from Zillow here. Glad you find Zillow empowering and fun! I’ve worked here for years and still find myself browsing every day ; ) We aim to empower by providing information so you can make intelligent decisions about one of the most significant choices you’ll ever make. Couple our data and insight with the experience of a great real estate professional who knows the local market and you’re on your way!
Re our Zestimates: You are absolutely correct that our accuracy rates vary from region to region due to many variables. In fact, we are the only large-scale provider of valuations who regularly updates and provides metrics on the accuracy of our Zestimate for all regions in the country. I won’t post a spammy link here but you can find a link to this info at the bottom of every page on our site.
Truly appreciate the feedback, all!
Russ
Zillow
@russellhatfield Thanks for stopping by, Russ! I do hope you update the Zestimate on my house so people don’t think I got ripped off ;)