3 Of The Worst Things About Zillow - Plus a Few Good Ones

Zillow, a great tool that also has major downsides.

Zillow has been around for years and they’re not slowing down any time soon. They recently merged with Trulia, causing them to now have an even larger hold on the market. While this website is a useful tool and resource most of the time, it also has it's limitations. What are those limitations you ask? Let’s go through them.

THE CONS:

-Zestimates

A measure of worth that is at most only mediocre in accuracy . The algorithms are hit and miss, depending on which market you are looking at. Real Estate is not always an equation, but they sure try to make it seem like it is. Zestimates take into account a lot of information and try to come up with a useful number for property values. Problem with these calculations is they don’t always get the most accurate data to plug in. 2 major problems that stem from this are, buyers making offers based on the zestimate (lower than asking,) and sellers thinking their home is worth significantly more than it actually is.  It's obvious this current model has issues, however, zillow is making efforts to improve the results. In the meanwhile, clients should take the zestimates with a grain of salt.

-Recent sales

Zillow and other websites have agreements with the different MLS providers to receive access to the information. When those agreements are terminated, they're left with big holes in their data causing their listings to be out of date. This has a major effect on all of their offerings, especially the zestimates. How can you accurately tell someone the worth of a property if you don't have all the data? You can't. For example Zillow lost their contact with one of the providers in April. Take a look at their site and compare it to something like Redfin and you'll see the differences.

-Mortgage rates

 Zillow will typically display rates at last 0.5% lower than other sites to try and pull you in. Everyone loves a great rate, but having quick rates that are super low with lots of hidden small print and fees is misleading. Not much to say here other than read the reviews and be wary of rates that seem just too good to be true.

THE GOOD:

-Calculators

If you look past the numerous advertisements from lenders you will find some useful tools, like the calculator. They do a pretty good job of determining how much you can purchase and what your payments will be.

-Interface

While their data may not be totally reliable or up-to-date, they have put a lot of effort into an easy to use interface. Searching is super simple and filtering is a breeze. Not too many complaints there.

Overall, Zillow is a good site. They have some useful info and tools, but also a lot of misleading information. My best advice:  for good calculators use Zillow, and for good, accurate information use Redfin.