Since my Sandicor vs. Zillow post on Wednesday, I've had a few conversations with agents around town - including the guy who is the chair of the Sandicor committee charged with handling the negotiations with Zillow. Every opinion was similar to this comment left over...
Most national forecasts are predicting a 3% to 4% appreciation rate for 2016, which has to be a safe bet. If it comes in anywhere from -2% to +8%, you can say that you were close. Zillow has enough algorithms that they are willing to make predictions for each local...
The Z Group is probably smart to talk in generalities and just spew the usual stuff about next year - higher prices, tight inventory, and less affordability. They even dropped a 'priced out completely' about those in the bottom-third-of-incomes category. One thing...
The speaker yesterday mentioned that Zillow did a survey a while back and asked, 'What is your favorite real estate website?" Amazon came in 5th place. But Amazon doesn't offer a real estate website. Remember when you would never send your credit card data over the...
The Z team was in town today. Here is a video of their presentation of the SD stats, plus Doug Harwood and myself discussing the future. My comments were based on this piece:...
Sellers shouldn't get attached to any certain price - they aren't the ones paying it. Instead, select an attractive list price, and judge the market's reaction - and adjust accordingly. A story on the accuracy of zestimates:...
Hat tip to swm for sending in this article about sellers blaming zestimates for why they can't fetch their higher price: http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/2014/11/15/zillowcomplaints/19054089/ The owner of one New York home writes that a low zestimate is...
Anybody can evaluate a tract home with accuracy - the custom homes are much tougher, and depend more on personal visits. If you are in a custom area, hit the open houses (sellers and buyers)! An excerpt from USAToday.com:...
This is pertinent because I'm working on a Zillow add-on for the blog. Is Zillow relevant? It's a starting point for most areas, but in pure tract-home neighborhoods they should be fairly accurate by now. Will sellers listen? Hat tip to SM for sending this along,...
