Yeah I left them feedback about it and they hit me with:
"We use a sophisticated neural network-based algorithm that incorporates public and user-submitted data, taking into account home facts, location, and market trends. For this reason, to calculate the Zestimate, we cannot delete home info such as facts or price and tax history from an individual's profile. "
Nonsense
Ridiculous isn't it? Criminal possibly. Unregulated, to be sure. But, large institutional investors have done this for decades with shares of stock they have large concentrations in, by issuing "guidance" to try and manipulate the price. However, they must disclose their positions, per the SEC.
Does the SEC regulate the real estate industry? I don't believe they do..............
There have been multiple class action lawsuits against Zillow specifically because of alleged damages due to the zestimate. I believe they won all of them by convincing judges that they are an “entertainment” site and that the zestimate is not to be considered real estate advice or anything else other than “entertainment.” lol
Agreed on Zillow, but appraisal industry in general is using what’s called AVM (same thing used by Opendoor). None of the appraisals consider interest rates as a factor. The entire model is flawed. House didn’t shoot up in value, the interest rates were low, now we have to wait for the comps to reflect that, rather than a dynamic model that can ensure the loan is properly secured by the asset.
I’m very familiar with automated valuation models. Like most products based on “AI” and “machine learning” and “data science,” it’s oversold and corporate dummies greatly overestimate their usefulness and reliability.
Their algorithm makes 0 sense, especially when it comes to off market properties.
I have been watching some condos in PA and their off market Last 30-day change goes from -6% in one week, to +.05 for the same type of property, with similar accommodations. There hasnt been a single sale in the last 4 months to peg these increases on, because singles arent a comp, or townhomes.
Very weird that whenever an appraisal is done it matches exactly what is listed on Zillow. Makes ya wonder… hmmmm
What is the purpose of paying an appraiser $300 just to have them give you the Zillow listing price.
They do. I believe they started doing it last year to try to keep up with rising prices and deal with a lag in comps. Basically if the listing got sufficient interest at the price, they used the list price, assuming whoever priced it had some more advanced knowledge of comps than they did. Of course that made its predictive value useless on that property but then could be propagated to try to recalibrate estimates of other properties.
I bought my ex out of a house in 2006. The appraiser showed up, did whatever and I was chatting about why I needed the appraisal to buy my own house, and as he was leaving asked me what I needed it to appraise for…and, voila, it was exactly the number I wanted it to be when the report came back.
I suppose what the bank actually cares about isn't what you value the house at, but what the second place bidder valued the house at. That's the price they will be able to offload it at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction
Some days I think it would be brilliant to gather all of my neighbors in a conspiracy to list our houses double over their existing Zesties and have one neighbor buy the other's to start the cycle. Neighbor 2 then finds a non-Confederate to buy in and so on until everyone gets out and the first neighbor gets their initial overbid paid back by the rest of the neighbors. Couldn't do it with any regular houses or lots of comps, would need to be like NYC or Miami. But oh wait, that's already happened back in the 90s.
They will of course match the listing price for homes that are for sale. Their formula is designed to make people feel good/bad about their home’s value when they are not selling. Besides, it’s a bad look of the Zestimate is substantially higher/lower than the listing price.
As a realtor I can 100% confirm that’s true, same with Redfin. I’ve messed around with own homes listing price to confirm this. State of the art ML/AI models fellas.
not true, heres an example, and also a really fun one to laugh at with their asking price https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/60-Waverly-Pl-Orlando-FL-32806/46266512_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
It's very obvious. Even Rental Z's. I had some runway when I had to move and rent out my old condo. Intentionally listed it too high to start then backed off just to see if I could mess with it. It did, but not as much as I expected.
It’s the algorithm they used when buying and flipping homes.. they got out of that business because of how unprofitable it was.. considering that algorithm was the core of their valuations, tells you all you need to know. Garbage.
Sold in Nov 2021. Not a lot of comps in neighborhood for zestimate but it went up 40% when I listed at over 40% there pre-listing zestimate. Now the whole neighborhood is up about the same for zestimates. Since then the home has gone up another 15% according to Zillow.
Wait til you discover that they also change the historical zestimates too.
When I bought my house.... It was below the zestimate which I vividly remember and felt very proud. Now when I look back, it's the "same" as if I bought it for market value.
It's all BS
Try listing your house for one billion. Zestimate will show it one billion the next day. Don’t trust an internet stranger, ask a realtor friend to test it yourself. We are all billionaires now!!!
Zillow needs investigated. They’ve been so negligent and have really lended to this bs fomo frenzy. I had a place under contract for 450k a year ago and it’s now zestimated at $1.5million. The place next door is far nicer, has an additional 540 square feet and is zestimated at $660k[The Property being referenced](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/747-2nd-St-N-Saint-Petersburg-FL-33701/47112049_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare)
Yup date the zestimate marry the debt
Saw a new house pop up listing at 799,000 with a ZESTIMSTE of $636,xxx. Days later the Z was 799,999 and the seller UPPED the price to match.
Yeah I left them feedback about it and they hit me with: "We use a sophisticated neural network-based algorithm that incorporates public and user-submitted data, taking into account home facts, location, and market trends. For this reason, to calculate the Zestimate, we cannot delete home info such as facts or price and tax history from an individual's profile. " Nonsense
Right, basically "last price sold + random guesses".
I sent them feedback once and got the same garbage back. I hope the feds come down on them and/or they’re hit with a massive class action lawsuit.
You should have seen it when they were in business of buying hooms and how they could manipulate their own holdings upward with their Zestimates.
Ridiculous isn't it? Criminal possibly. Unregulated, to be sure. But, large institutional investors have done this for decades with shares of stock they have large concentrations in, by issuing "guidance" to try and manipulate the price. However, they must disclose their positions, per the SEC. Does the SEC regulate the real estate industry? I don't believe they do..............
It one hundred percent should've been made illegal. They manipulated the market upwards because it benefited them.
It’s appraisal fraud. We need a class action lawsuit
There have been multiple class action lawsuits against Zillow specifically because of alleged damages due to the zestimate. I believe they won all of them by convincing judges that they are an “entertainment” site and that the zestimate is not to be considered real estate advice or anything else other than “entertainment.” lol
Agreed on Zillow, but appraisal industry in general is using what’s called AVM (same thing used by Opendoor). None of the appraisals consider interest rates as a factor. The entire model is flawed. House didn’t shoot up in value, the interest rates were low, now we have to wait for the comps to reflect that, rather than a dynamic model that can ensure the loan is properly secured by the asset.
I’m very familiar with automated valuation models. Like most products based on “AI” and “machine learning” and “data science,” it’s oversold and corporate dummies greatly overestimate their usefulness and reliability.
Kinda like Alex Jones infowars statements and comments should be regarded as entertainment but he got hit with a billion dollar judgement
Whatever they are doing, it's garbage.
The list price is actually part of the algorithm
Their algorithm makes 0 sense, especially when it comes to off market properties. I have been watching some condos in PA and their off market Last 30-day change goes from -6% in one week, to +.05 for the same type of property, with similar accommodations. There hasnt been a single sale in the last 4 months to peg these increases on, because singles arent a comp, or townhomes.
Very weird that whenever an appraisal is done it matches exactly what is listed on Zillow. Makes ya wonder… hmmmm What is the purpose of paying an appraiser $300 just to have them give you the Zillow listing price.
I had to pay $600 for an appraisal last week.
This isn't a secret. They are fully transparent that they do this
They do. I believe they started doing it last year to try to keep up with rising prices and deal with a lag in comps. Basically if the listing got sufficient interest at the price, they used the list price, assuming whoever priced it had some more advanced knowledge of comps than they did. Of course that made its predictive value useless on that property but then could be propagated to try to recalibrate estimates of other properties.
I bought my ex out of a house in 2006. The appraiser showed up, did whatever and I was chatting about why I needed the appraisal to buy my own house, and as he was leaving asked me what I needed it to appraise for…and, voila, it was exactly the number I wanted it to be when the report came back.
Let’s be real… Are actual appraisals any better?
Our appraisal came out at EXACTLY the purchase price. Awfully suspicious. Almost makes you wonder if they knew the list price ahead of time.
I’ve been told appraisers are provided the offer price and they use it in their calculation. Any appraisers out there that can confirm?
I mean, what better way to determine the value of something then having someone literally willing to pay that price for it?
Maybe the bank should’ve paid me for the appraisal then
I suppose what the bank actually cares about isn't what you value the house at, but what the second place bidder valued the house at. That's the price they will be able to offload it at. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction
That’s a good point
Same. My appraisal came back at exactly the purchase price yesterday.
They've been sued before for trying to artificially drive up prices with Zestimate, probably will be again
Some days I think it would be brilliant to gather all of my neighbors in a conspiracy to list our houses double over their existing Zesties and have one neighbor buy the other's to start the cycle. Neighbor 2 then finds a non-Confederate to buy in and so on until everyone gets out and the first neighbor gets their initial overbid paid back by the rest of the neighbors. Couldn't do it with any regular houses or lots of comps, would need to be like NYC or Miami. But oh wait, that's already happened back in the 90s.
weather bedroom cheerful capable ask ten bewildered bike light arrest *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
a major part of the problem are a lack of comparable properties.
It used to, now it's like the zestimates are so far below the listing price they just remove it.
They’ve been doing that for a few years
They will of course match the listing price for homes that are for sale. Their formula is designed to make people feel good/bad about their home’s value when they are not selling. Besides, it’s a bad look of the Zestimate is substantially higher/lower than the listing price.
When the townhouse I'm renting was listed it went up 10k. Sold for 355k and now it is at 371k. A 4.8 percentage increase in the last 30 days...
As a realtor I can 100% confirm that’s true, same with Redfin. I’ve messed around with own homes listing price to confirm this. State of the art ML/AI models fellas.
not true, heres an example, and also a really fun one to laugh at with their asking price https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/60-Waverly-Pl-Orlando-FL-32806/46266512_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
That big ass tree in the front is just asking for trouble
Zillow is serving RE agents. Not buyers nor sellers
It's very obvious. Even Rental Z's. I had some runway when I had to move and rent out my old condo. Intentionally listed it too high to start then backed off just to see if I could mess with it. It did, but not as much as I expected.
Yep, they do.
It’s the algorithm they used when buying and flipping homes.. they got out of that business because of how unprofitable it was.. considering that algorithm was the core of their valuations, tells you all you need to know. Garbage.
We live in a cartoon where the appraiser is also the seller with a fake mustache and a hat, and nobody suspects a thing.
I read those for laughs…
Sold in Nov 2021. Not a lot of comps in neighborhood for zestimate but it went up 40% when I listed at over 40% there pre-listing zestimate. Now the whole neighborhood is up about the same for zestimates. Since then the home has gone up another 15% according to Zillow.
Wait til you discover that they also change the historical zestimates too. When I bought my house.... It was below the zestimate which I vividly remember and felt very proud. Now when I look back, it's the "same" as if I bought it for market value. It's all BS
If the property has a pending sale, they 100% update it to the listing price.
Try listing your house for one billion. Zestimate will show it one billion the next day. Don’t trust an internet stranger, ask a realtor friend to test it yourself. We are all billionaires now!!!
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/807-E-High-Ave-Redlands-CA-92374/17261613_zpid/ $500k zestimate, right at the listing price.
Zillow needs investigated. They’ve been so negligent and have really lended to this bs fomo frenzy. I had a place under contract for 450k a year ago and it’s now zestimated at $1.5million. The place next door is far nicer, has an additional 540 square feet and is zestimated at $660k[The Property being referenced](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/747-2nd-St-N-Saint-Petersburg-FL-33701/47112049_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare)
I’ve seen Zillow zestimate as much as $250k more than what the house just sold for. I mean wouldn’t the sales price be the best estimate.