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I think that if we do not panic, but simply show clients and customers we work with, why our market analysis is more accurate we will be fine. I find many of zillows "guesstimates" to be way off in my area. In fact I think they will have a serious credibility problem as time goes by. People will not trust their numbers.

Let be more specific about zillow's mistakes in our area. They seem to draw too wide a radius when looking at comps. It is not unusual here to have one neighborhood where all the homes sell for $80-85 per square foot, next to another neighborhood where they sell for $100 per sf, next to yet another where they go for $150 per sf. Zillow will over estimate the value of the first 2 neighborhoods and under estimate the value of the third. Their approach lacks understanding of the local market.

Zillow is usually behind for several months.  If you want to know what your property was worth a couple of months ago, great use Zillow.  I do like the maps in there.  Trying to think of the positive.  

Jana

Dennis, I happen to think that you are on to something with Zillow and other similar sites.  It may be just a coincidence, but I do think that the numbers could be impacted by the data. You know "Garbage in, Garbage out".  Just a thought.

When Zillow first came out, I ran into a lot of people who trused those numbers but they've lost credibility and it's been a while since I've come accross anyone here actually believing their Zestimate.

Janet Gaut

I find that so many people in my area have never even heard of it - whether in or out of our business.  Funny, but I wish their "zestimates" were correct, they have my own property valued at minimum $50K more than I could ever sell it for in today's market.  Not sure what "bright boy" came up with this system, but it certainly does not seem to hold much, if any, credibility.  In a perfect world we would all be "zesti". . . with people getting easy "zortgages" and lots of "zales". . . lol.

I've had 4 or 5 clients ask about Z....in two years.  I showed them my comps and all of them seemed to understand that the local information was more accurate.  

Realtor, Columbus Ga.

I compared some listings of lakehomes in minnesota and the information on zillow and it is  not the same the local mls is more accurate and knowing the local real estate market is the key to finding out the value of lake homes-lake lots. http://www.mnlakeplace.com