Zillow has an apparently built-in bias towards higher-than-market pricing.
I say this because if you check Zillow a few weeks after a property has closed, check its selling history and verify the actual sales price, the new “zestimate” is MUCH higher than that sales price. Why? Apparently their algorithm assigns more weight to comps from 6-11 months previously than it does to the subject property’s actual 2-3 week old sales price.
This is totally ludicrous.
For example, the house down the street from me sold in September for 975K, after being listed at 1.075M and then reduced to 1.025M. What is the “zestimate” of its current value? Why, 1.1M of course!
Are other readers seeing similar biases towards the upside when using Zillow? Is it some sort of realtor’s propaganda spin? Frankly, I can do my own comps pretty easily. With Zillow, I can pretty much count on them being at least 100K-200K off the money each and every time, and ALWAYS to the upside. They are at least useful for grabbing the previous sold data and sales tax information.
Keep an eye out for cleanoffer.com if and when it expands to the San Diego market. It not only provides up-to-the minute listing data, but allows you to see properties that are in escrow, and if you work it right, solds also.
