OUCH!!!!!

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Spurred by MidwestJD's net worth thread I decided to check my house on Zillow.

I understand the limitations of Zillow, nevertheless, my house has lost $100k in one year.

We're here for the long-term, and it is a desirable location, but still..zero net worth just sped away, LOL.

[midjd]

Zillow has been a little wonky lately, I wouldn't let it worry you. Apparently my house has doubled in value in the last 16 days... before that it was worth about half what we paid for it in Feb. It seems to be leveling out, at least around here, but I still wouldn't trust the calculations.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

1) My house is Zestimated at $140,000. I paid $260,000 in 2006. I owe $240,000 right now.
2) Zillow says there's one bathroom. I have two.
3) There's a picture of the front of my house. That's kind of freaky. It was taken three years ago, after I had two trees removed in the front yard, but before I replaced the front door. Really freaky.

ETA: I'm not living there right now; I've rented it out. We could end up there, especially since we cannot sell it since I owe so much more than it's worth.

[DVM gone riding]

If you want to know what your house is worth, call your bank, they keep an estimate on file and change/update regularly--it takes a bit to get through but I bet it is a lot more accurate then zillow. Though when I have checked zillow in the past I didn't think it was to far wrong.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

On Zillow, our home is currently "zestimated" to be $3,500 more than we paid for it in 2003. I check Zillow once in a while and it has bounced up and down around $20,000 for the last year or so... mostly down.

[Malarky]

I just checked mine. It's low considering what houses go for around here. Somehow they missed the detached garage, but they would have no way of knowing about all the upgrades.

It reads $322, I pay taxes on a value of $340 and they have the high value listed as $1.9 million in 2009.

In 2005 I got an tentative offer from a realtor of $450. I'd say that was the high. And it's never been for sale and most likely I'll die here. At least that's the plan.

[jd2005]

Try eppraisal.com. That is a website my bank uses. Careful though, you may not like what you find. I know I didn't!

[Wisconsin Beth]

Ouch. That's ugly alright JD.

[Deleted]

Try eppraisal.com. That is a website my bank uses. Careful though, you may not like what you find. I know I didn't!

Edited because I misstyped the address.

[Deleted]

Zillow has my house at $129,000, and Eppraisal has it at $164,000. I paid $142,500 for it in 2004.

The price is probably somewhere between the two values, but it's not for sale.

[KaraBoo]

My approximate worth isn't accurate either.

What's scary is the picture attached to my home. I can give you a pretty good idea of when the picture was taken, just based on the aerial photograph:

~Picture was taken at least 2 winters ago (probably 3 or 4).
~Taken at about 11:00am on a week day.
~My dogs are sunning themselves on the back porch.

[Waffle]

According to Zillow, my house lost about $5000 in value in the last 30 days. Just for kicks, I looked up a house I used to live in, less than 4 miles away, same zip code and it went up $79,000 in the last 30 days. I don't belive it.

[Plain Old Petunia]

I was unaware of the eppraisal site, thanks JD.

Zillow says my house is $120,300 and eppraisal says $120,636.

I owe just a hair under 182k. I feel your pain, Goldengirl. Ouch is right.

[Deleted]

LOL @ Zillow!

It has MY house valued at $38,000

4 BR, 3.5 bath, 1/3 acre, updated throughout, desirable neighborhood, professionally landscaped, etc...
Heck, the LAND is worth more than that.....

[t-dog]

Zillow has my house at $230,000 and eppraisal has it at $160,000. Rental house I moved out of when I bought mine (.80 mile from my purchased home) just sold after forclosure for $201,500 and a house between mine and the rental sold for $249,000 - I am hoping Zillow is closer than eppraisal!

[Deleted]

Zillow can be accurate...or not. In areas like the one we moved out of, it's REALLY accurate. All cookie-cutter houses that are basically the same with some variance in square footage and decor.

In the area we moved into, it's not accurate at all. The houses were all built in the 1950's. Some might have 1750 SF with no basement and be situated on a crappy lot. Maybe those are valued at $300K. Others have a full finished basement, totally updated, really nice lot, and can go for as much as $500K. I bet they'd both be zillow'd for pretty much the same amount.

[Deleted]

You are probably right, Davebo, but what people don't realize is that you can "claim" your house on Zillow. So you can update the number of bathrooms if it is wrong, etc.

I think Zillow is closer to value than eppraisal in my case. I live in a zip code that includes an expensive subdivision in another city. We are almost literally across the road from each other, but they have the good school system (where I teach), etc. So I think eppraisal is skewing my results because of that factor. At Zillow, I claimed the house and corrected the schools attached to it. My house is unique (as are all the houses on my short little road, including the one behind me currently for sale at $579,000), which also skews everything.

Who really cares if your house isn't for sale. I know I owe less than the house is worth if only because I've been aggressive. I owe a tad over $100,000. Beginning next month when the remaining $200 is paid off on my original second mortgage (80/10/10 financing), I will start throwing the $317 I have been paying toward the first's principal.

You don't know how hard it has been not to simply pay the remaining $200 off, but I'm going out-of-state to a wedding for a week, and I am conserving cash until I return.

[constanz22]

Mine is showing around 164K on both sites, which is probably pretty accurate, maybe even a little better than I expected. There's no photo of my house, thank goodness...that would probably freak me out a bit too! The area it plots to on the map isn't even accurate...LOL...I do live in a fairly rural area, but, still. We just got actual "street" addressed about 2 years ago to meet the 911 requirements. Prior to that, we were all "rural route" addresses, so, I find even now, when I put my "street address" in to different search engines, it doesn't exist Actually, that's ok with me!

[midjd]

I can't find my house on Eppraisal... probably the address, I have one of the "1000 North 700 West" type addresses as opposed to 123 Jones St. But now I really want to know!!

[lurkyloo]

Holy crap. Eppraisal thinks it's worth 555; Zillow thinks it's worth less than 450...but both of them are better than the county estimate I got yesterday of 420. Um, yay for lower taxes?

[DVM gone riding]

huh the two websites are with in 7k of each other for my house. a reasonable margin of error. Zillow has actually gone up about 10k for my house in the last year

[tallguy]

With mine the two sites are within about 1.4% of each other (737 vs. 727) so that is certainly reasonable. However, another property in which I held an interest was recently sold. The Zillow value for a couple months almost exactly matched the eventual asking and selling price, and remains right around that level. Eppraisal is almost a quarter-million less. Just bizarre.

[TheOtherMe]

Huge difference for me:

Zillow: $156,000
Eppraisal: $126,256

County thinks it's worth $143,310, but here that is a % of it's value, not 100%.

Refinanced for $156K last December with no problem.

Eppraisal says it was built 5 years before it was built and doesn't know I have a fireplace.

[bring in the new year]

theotherme,

Zillow thinks I have your fireplace. I don't.

I think both estimates are too high. The double lot, recently renovated from tip to top house next door is skewing their calculations is my guess.

For net worth purposes, I use property tax assessment or the sale price if it's recent (say last three years). Anything else is too reminscent of office party chatter in the late 80's and the height of the bubble where prices were going up (or down) by the minute.

It's a house. Unless someone finds oil underneath it or a faultline, the value is not going to really be jumping up and down day by day.

[Bob Ross]

Zillow's a load of crap and I've forever known this to be so.

According to their "zesty estimates" (that's what I call em since it sounds just as dumb as zillow is), my house actually has two units (no, it doesn't). Anyways, Unit #1 is valued at $155k and Unit #2 is valued at $213k. Both "units" have exactly the same info (the total info for the entire house) and even that is wrong. Basic things like square footage, etc. Oh, and the price history graphs of each "unit" are completely different, going back years and years.

I had my home appraised during my refi at the end of last year, and the appraiser came back with a value of $200k, so that's what I'm going with. Incidentally, if you want to use zillow to get an idea of what your home is "worth", it's best to look at the actual prices that similar homes in the area have sold for recently. That reflects market value better than zillow's voodoo magic, and is also typically what an appraiser uses in their assessment.

[runewell]

Bought for $225 six years ago. Owe $150.
Zillow: $217
Eppraisal: $239

You do realize if the info is wrong you can change it?