Zillow rent rate & appreciation projection reliable?

[Diane Tycangco]

Hi everyone!  Was wondering if the rent estimate Zillow puts at the bottom of the sale listing is reliable/realistic vs Rentometer?  I notice that Rentometer's average and/or median is higher most of the time compared to Zillow.  Also, zillow also has a blurb that usually says that a property has appreciated x% this year and this area is projected to appreciate x% next year.  Is their prediction usually correct?

Thanks!

[Trent Stone]

NOOOOO!!! Lol....... Neither one of those sites are terribly accurate. They might give you an idea, and maybe help you with some trends, but TRUE estimates require a human touch. The rent prices are slightly more accurate but the home prices and appreciation numbers are gross. I'm a realtor and recently attended a class by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. We worked through the MLS and Cloud CMA and in the properties we looked at Zillow was almost %10 off on average, that's $36,000 off for the median home price in SLC right now. Zillow was even worse for homes in Utah County. Could you imagine using a Zestimate to sell your house and losing over $30,000?

My advice: Depends on why you want the rent prices, but the market is usually accurate in realtime dictating rent prices. You can look on places like Zillow and Rent.com to see what's available and how long it's been available to see what rents actually are (as opposed to a computer algorithm predicting prices). You might have an outlier here or there, but what you see is what you get. If you are looking to invest then the absolute best source will be property management companies. They have their finger directly on the pulse of the rental market and they will tell you exactly how much any given property will rent for.