Zillow. Why?

[janedoe]

For vanity reasons and also because I thought zillow had an influence on the market for refinancing purposes, I posted a description of my home on zillow after we had done a bunch of work. After I posted, we replaced half of the cedar shingles on the house and installed insulation. Right after that, the value on zillow plummeted. I started watching the "value" and it's all over the board. It will go up by $45K one day and go down by $40K the next. Meanwhile, our neighbors' home values on zillow are staying steady.

All of this coincides with my mother in law's death and the subsequent public online documents showing that the life estate on the house has been removed, etc. We have been approached by people who apparently thought they could get the house on the cheap because of her death. They thought we wouldn't stay and would unload the house as quickly as possible.

Does the valuation on zillow matter? And how do they figure it if they've never been in the house? I thought that zillow recruited local real estate agents to evaluate. How would they have any idea other than by looking at local sales?

I have since removed the description I originally posted. It was clearly a mistake to draw attention to the house.

[JenC]

I can't imagine a bank would care what Zillow has to say. I like it to find houses/land (we used it when looking about a year and a half ago) and when I want to be nosy (a new house went up for sale on our street, now I know what the inside looks like) or if I want to know how much something sold for or is currently priced at.

Other than that, I wouldn't use it for any other purpose.

[Molly41]

Those real estate agents shown along the side have paid to have their info appear on Zillow. I believe they sign up for certain areas based on zip codes. It's basically serves as an on-line business card. I wouldn't put any faith in their estimate since you don't know the criteria used as the basis. Zillow is good for checking how long a property has been on the market, finding out about property taxes and for viewing pictures when available. That's my opinion of it, anyway.

[Barry P]

Zillow is still showing pre-Hurricane Sandy valuations for houses that don't even exist anymore here.

[janedoe]

Perfect. Thank you everyone.