Trulia vs Zillow vs Realtor.com

[Justin Maynard]

I'm new to the REI and do not have access to the MLS yet. Is it safe to use Trulia, Zillow or Realtor.com for my comps, if I'm using them all? I"m also using the county assessor site to get assessment price from there and compared to those prices. I'm basically taking prices from all four sites and then taking the averages from that to get comps right now.

[Chris Feltus]

@Justin Maynard With all due respect, your title displays "real estate investor". ARV is one of the most critical aspects of the puzzle to estimate correctly for your investments, with so much on the line why would you chance it?

The counties tax assessed value has nothing to do with market value and is often inaccurate. The sole purpose of the counties assessment is to generate tax revenue.

Websites such as Trulia and Zillow are not accurate for figuring out the ARV of a specific property. They use algorithms that attempt to estimate what the property is worth, and these values can fluctuate wildly compared to the properties real market value.

The only exception is Redfin. In some markets Redfin pulls sold comps directly from the MLS. They do this in my market; however, please note this data is limited in scope and you will not get the same level of information if you were to pull the comps yourself or have an agent do it for you from the MLS. Often times when I have checked Redfin they are missing sold comps in the area that only show up on the MLS. They also do not show leased comps and things of that nature.

Hope that helps.