Zillow.com updates

[BuyerWillEPB]

I have been tracking the housing prices for the last few months. One of the nice tools I found useful was at zillow.com.

There now seems to be an issue with getting up to date information from this website, and I am curious if others notice the same problem. If I remember correctly, zillow.com was updating their charts every week. Now, it appears they only update every 3 weeks. Is that true first of all? Secondly, if true, why the delay in updates? One thought I had is that possibly there are simply so few sales that there is not enough data to process into new estimates.

As a side note, I chose my username to reflect the 180 degree change in market dynamics. Spelled out, it means, “Buyer will entertain prices between …” This is my mindset for this long awaited shift to us the abused buyers.

[sdcellar]

I like it! Had you considered Buyer will entertain prices below… ?

As far as your topic is concerned, what do you mean? Is it the zestimate charts that changed frequency? I’ve been curious about all of that.

Does anybody know when they post the new sales? It almost seems like a monthly thing. For example, when will the September sales show up?

[BuyerWillEPB]

Yes! I like that even better, “Buyer will entertain prices below…” 🙂

If you go to zillow.com and enter an address, you will see at the top, “One week change: ” then “zestimate: ” then below that, “Last Updated: .” These are the items that were updated weekly – and now every 3-4 weeks IMO.

[IONEGARM]

What I have seen was that no sales updates have happened in my local area for over a month (SFV area in LA). I think something is wrong.

[speedingpullet]

Strangely enough, Buyer, I was going to ask the esteemed company at Piggington’s the very same question….

Seems that Zillow was actually updating weekly as late as August.

September – 1st and 15th (current) appears to be bi-monthly – except that that would mean an update on 30th sept, 4 days ago.

I can’t seem to find any info from Zillow themselves as to when they will update, or why they are updating to erratically. Like others, my guess would be lack of sales data for comps.

Seeing as I’m using the Zestimate as an upper price guideline, I would like to know when I have to trawl through the 60 or so places I’m tracking on Zip to see a difference.
Yes, I know, Zestimates are notorious for their innaccuracy, but in conjunction with previous sales data and even tax assessed value, it gives some indication of which prices are going for a particular property. I’d rather see no change on a weekly basis, than waiting a month and having to update like mad.

[sdcellar]

Does anybody know a better source to get “sold” data anyway? It’s kind of tedious sucking it out of Zillow.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Sales info:

County Web Site (takes a while to show up)
http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/arcc/services/propsales_search.html

San Diego Daily Transcript (searchable database requires subscription).
sddt.com

[Anonymous]

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.

[kiki]

I had the same experience.I saw at least 3 houses where sales price in 2006 were at 2004 levels however the “value line” continues to increase in 2005 and a little in 2006.

[Author]

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