Twice in the last month, in the course of representing a buyer, the listing agent tried to use the property’s Zestimate (conveniently high in both cases!) to convince me and my client that the home was worth more than we thought it was. Hey, whatever works!
(Comments mine)
In neither case did it work, however. We had a pretty firm (and, we believed, accurate) idea of the homes’ true values, and since neither case involved multiple bids, we were able to stick to our guns and didn’t go any higher.What was interesting in both cases was just how much stock the listing agents put in the Zestimate — and it wasn’t just negotiating bluster. They honestly thought that quoting a Zestimate would be a compelling closing argument, that somehow we would fold in the face of such overwhelming evidence.
I often come up with a Zestimate of sorts of my own, using straightforward Statistics 101 regression. I find it quite helpful to get an initial estimate of a property’s value before seeing it. However, I and my clients (I make sure of that) understand that it’s simply an initial estimate, not a hard-and-fast number.
Lots of people, especially this guy, seem not to understand the “estimate” part of a Zestimate. Zillow’s help page is pretty explicit:
(Comments mine)
Next time I’m in negotiations with those two listing agents, maybe I’ll try to use the same strategy?
Tags: For buyers, For sellers, Fun with Zillow, Zillow
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?RE: Any thoughts on the feds (in)activity this morning?? August 5 at 9:46 pm 
�Good news, your equity line and business line of credit rates remain the same as yesterday, as the Fed held short-term rates steady today. Why? Because despite unemployment concerns, the economy is doing fine (1.4% growth year to date-- thank you exports!), core inflation is under control at this point, gas prices have dropped over 6% recently and it's more prudent to maintain a steady helm when the economy appears relatively balanced. Eric T. Trailer, Principal
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