How reliable is zillow.com for comps

Bird Dogs, Wholesaling
1

I need to get some comps for a potential wholesale deal. I pulled the house up on zillow but the numbers seem very low. Any ideas??

Thanks,

Jaz

2

It’s hit or miss. Some seem to be dead on, others are so far off it warrants a chuckle. End result is you either need to KNOW your market enough to make a good estimate yourself or get a realtor to do comps for you. You can learn your market by visiting as many properties that are for sale as possible and learning what things sell for in your area.

3

Thanks, I figured results are so far an between I’ll be playing Russian Rullet

Jaz

4

I use it a lot in towns I don’t know just to get a general idea, if it seems to be a deal I look on the MLS at recent sales and do a better analysis. For me its a real help to have something that can tell me in a few seconds whether something is worth persuing.

For you if you don’t know the market and don’t have access to the MLS you won’t know if the numbers are good or not.

5

Make sure you check the dates for the SOLD prices, as Zillow considers a year ago to be recent.

6

LOL,

You can get free access for comps from loan brokers and title companies.
In exchange for doing business with them.

7

You can search on realtor.com as well. You just punch in the address. Granted, it’s not a pretty map like zillow, but it’ll show you what’s sold in the area. It’s pretty easy in areas where the houses were built in the same era and are similar.

8

i’m not very familiar with zillow and i’ve never used it. is there a REIA in your area with comparable sales information?

it’s not that difficult to get access to the MLS. just ask people. i got told no several times before some people said yes. appraiser have access to that data and one of them gave me his password and two realtors gave me their passwords. ask as many as it takes. it’s nice to be able to get the most recent information from the comfort of your own home.

realtors will be even more likely to give you the password if they make a commission from their relationship with you.

9

Lets just say my own personal home is on the wrong lot and the amount is lets say 200K off. Not accurate at all …I think there is/ was a class action lawsuit where people sold their homes for way under what they were worth thanks to Zillow.

10

i also have a question regarding zillow. when it says on there recently sold are they always correct?..cause i had seen a ugly house for sale one day driving home , and looked on zillow.com to see the comp and it said recently sold and the comp was way higher that the area.

11

:biggrin
hi all
I used zillow a few times and found it really confusing to figure out… but after playing with it for a while it looks pretty accurate… they get the comps from county sale records just like mls would so it should be accurate.
Re: Marcus said use realtor.com… since when does that site post comps?? they dont have a place to enter an address that i know of… if they do please let me know

12

On realtor.com look in the green box thats says WHATS YOUR HOME WORTH, it is on the main screen below the blue box where you would enter information to do a search. However I find it inaccurate still. I tried it a few times on properties i had appraisals done and way off. Ex. I just checked it last week. All the sites pretty much came in around 590-625K for a home I got appraised last week at 840K by a HML which is conservative always. Hugh difference and if you rely on those figures, you will loose a deal for sure.