As a realtor I do not hold much stock in Zillow and never did. Do not get to bummed out. If you really want to know what is going on then focus on the exact area and the exact type of housing and ask a Realtor or someone with MLS access to start tracking the listings for you. I think Zillow is a nice tool for people to get more information on the market but I could not comment on the accuracy of it.
Also I think in general the market is going to do what it will do. We all, (including me cuz I am a renter and I need a bigger home) want the market to slide down fast. However it may or may not do that. Yes inventory is sky high and yes sales have declined which is great. However for many reasons that has not translated to the price declines many of us WANT to see. However, in alot of certain types of housing I HAVE indeed seen big price drops. Not in the areas or types of homes I want but something is better then nothing. The other night I got some email from a good guy who posts here every now and then and we were trying to figure out why the market hasn’t tanked like it should. I commented that my wife is gonna kill me if it doesn’t indeed tank so maybe next year on my headstone it will read “he died waiting for the downturn”…
Real estate cycles are slow slow slow…
Anyways get your data from someone who can give you accurate stuff. You want to know what is active, what is pending, average market times, recent solds, recent expireds and cancelleds… When you want to really start to assess what is going on in the area you are thinking of buying in, then start gathering data and tracking stuff.
