dharma, I can tell you that in our valley, zillow is almost always high, the market is falling too fast for it to catch up. Sweetbrier is a very unique situation, not sure if zillow’s formula can capture the prices. It was a fill in tract in 1994 as roripaugh was closing out or going under. Houses were similar or the same as the tract homes surrounding it but those are all on giant lots 20k to 40k sq ft, with the same floorplans as the postage stamp lots surrounding them. They did have more garages, 3 or 4 car and people have added to them or added structures. They are all about 2100 sq ft, which is on the small side for the amount of land but when they were built the market was incredibly competative. Personally I wouldn’t buy anything out here built from 1994 to 1997, they needed to save every nickel and did. Those all sold for about 180k in 1994 and almost all of the houses show on zillow as the original owners (which makes it harder for zillow to comp). They also have model matches in the regular part of the tract that are old, small, dated and nothing there is worth more than 300k, so their identical twins on land are hard to assign a value to. Plus in their backyard are true customs, 3500-4000 sq ft newer upscale places on an acre that are priced double. There is no access from the customs to sweetbriar, they are permanently relegated to being landlocked with small 1000-1500 sq ft older homes that are primarily rentals, that hurts them. If you actually look at them up close they are well cared for, have massive landscape work, all have pools, etc. I’d say 350-450k based on what was done and how big of a lot. The 450k is probably too high for a house that small in our valley, even though they have giant lots, they aren’t similar to customs, no horses, no grapes, it’s just giant backyards. Roripaugh is a lower end development and that will always keep those down, plus little houses on an acre that can’t be farmed and is within an hoa have a small market to draw from. Less than 400k is my best guess. All the other house on that street are zillowed in the high 3’s, low 4’s, only that house is higher because it sold recently, zillows formula uses last sale and then the percentage trend since then, that is why it is zillowed at 50% more than every other house on the street and that is zillows greatest weakness.
