Be careful with those Redfin estimates – they are tied to the list prices.
The snip above was taken on January 15th, and the one below was taken last night. It’s hard to believe the actual value went up 12% in 48 hours:
Should they have the ability to revise their estimate once they get new information? I suppose, but they should state that clearly for those who believe what they read on the internet.
But they flat-out lie to you – their estimate was $465,166 on Tuesday.
This is what they show today – 12 months of estimates over $500,000:
I won’t mind if the Redfin estimate helps me start a bidding war, but I’d rather operate in a pure, non-manipulated market. Once buyers get burned enough, they shy away, which isn’t good for anyone.
My goodness you have some fast builders in California! The third bedroom was apparently built overnight and therefore justifies the price increase 🙂
Hopefully their algorithms would notice there wasn’t a change in the square footage.
I don’t expect them to pick it up, but the reality of a value-change due to converting a loft to a third bedroom when both bathrooms are downstairs is minimal, at best.
The problem is how they re-create history. If they are willing to do that, what else are they willing to do?
I’ve brought this up to Glenn, but he won’t talk about it. Twitter does a lousy job of keeping the comments readable, but if interested, you can pick through here to see the comments from R and Z:
https://twitter.com/Bubbleinfo/with_replies
I’ve been screaming that for years on here. And it’s worse on the downside. They revise history to show their estimates were always lower when in fact they were not. It’s cleary market manipulation (to their benefit) which is flat out illegal, but cleary the government stopped cracking down on that (and anti trust laws, Amazon, google, etc)
Inaccuracies on the internet? Surely the government will step in and crack down.
It’s more than “inaccuracies”. It’s changing what they previously said. Saying a house is worth $1 million on July 1 2018 then saying in December 1 2018 that you said it was worth $800,000 on July 1 2018 is not the same as being wrong on price. It’s intentional manipulation and when done on the scale of a Zillow can and does move markets. Unfortunately people rely on this “data” to make decisions.
This would be and is clearly illegal in the stock market but perfectly legal in the real estate market??? Analysts can revise price targets but certainly can NOT say they had a buy rating and $10 target on July 1 2018 then on Dec 1 2018 say they had a sell rating and $8 target on July 1 2018.
This would be and is clearly illegal in the stock market but perfectly legal in the real estate market???
I’m with you Tom, but us pointing it out hasn’t gone very far. In fact, nothing has resulted.
To spare you the twitter search, this is what I got from Spencer Rascoff and Glenn Kelman:
Spencer denied that Zillow changes their zestimate to fit the list price. When I posted an example where their zestimate went up 14% in one day, he refused to comment and instead got his henchman Stan on it. Stan posted three Zillow studies that showed how accurate the zestimate is, which I acknowledged and asked him to explain my example. He hasn’t responded.
Glenn got chippy with me and accused me of starting an argument after I posted this example:
https://www.bubbleinfo.com/2018/04/13/redfin-estimates-based-on-list-price/
I got started on this because Glenn had posted this video posing as his usual Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky when he said out of the other side of his mouth that we agents should beat each other brains out and that Redfin policy is to put their listings on their site, not the MLS:
https://twitter.com/marismls/status/1083453542051049474
They all have gone quiet, and unless some intrepid reporter like Ronan Farrow digs into it, I doubt anything will ever happen.
Meanwhile, on the street it is dog-eat-dog, and Compass has some fight in them, thankfully.