Zillow claims to have a tool on their site, called Zestimates that can provide homeowners a means to determine the current market value of their home. How accurate are the values? In reality, not very accurate at all. Why is that? To begin with, many factors have to be considered to come up with a true value. The data that Zillow relies on comes, for the most part, from local information it gathers from local town records. These records for example tend to not reflect information about upgrades that may have been done by the home owners, which certainly add value. It also takes into account local assessments of the property, again these figures do not take into consideration that they may have been done years ago, and don’t account for the current market conditions. Banks who provide the funding for mortgages, would only rely on independent appraisers who have access to recently sold properties in order to provide the banks with far more accurate data on true market value. You don’t need to hire and pay for an appraisal. A smarter approach for home owners is to connect with a professional agent in the area of your interest, and have them work for you as your agent and advocate. They know the area, properties, and have direct knowledge of the neighborhoods, and current market conditions. They can preform a comparable market analysis, using many of the same techniques and tools used by bank appraisers. This is too big a decision not to have a knowledgeable and professional agent on your team.
Good luck!
\-Charles “Chuck” Bartolo
