What’s your house worth? That’s a question most people really want the answer to, especially when they’re thinking about selling. There are a number of ways to arrive at a home valuation, and most people will simply put their address into Zillow or another online tool, the estimate they’ll receive isn’t always trustworthy. While the Zestimate can be helpful (and I even provide a quick home valuation tool here), there are some issues with them.

According to Zillow themselves, the Zestimate of homes that are on the market is off by an average of 1.9%. The Zestimate for houses not yet on the market or those that people are thinking about selling, has an average error rate of 7.5%.

I look at it in terms of dollars and cents. If your house falls in the range of $350,000, then when you look at the Estimate, it could be incorrect by over $26,000. That can be good, and that can be bad.

According to the website real estate decoded, zestimates are typically off by about $18,000. That’s a lot when we’re talking about pricing a home!

One of the biggest factors in having a house sell quickly instead of sitting on the market for a long time is its price. It is important to get the right asking price for your home, and it’s something that is not always easy to come up with. Many factors go into correctly pricing a home, but it’s an essential part of the real estate decision making process.

Zestimates and other online tools can be helpful, but it’s always best to get a valuation of your home before you sell it, which is why going with a local real estate professional is helpful.

If you want a personalized, individual comparative market analysis of your home, let me know, and I’d be happy to do one on your property. If you want a quick computer based valuation, click here.