@Katie TranIf you can sift through that stuff and know what you're doing in Cali, there's definitely still demand.

You can sift through 1000's of hours of content and piece together a great education. 

All that to say:  I'm not sure what you'd be trying to gain by hiring a person to sift through automated data and make this comparison, but starting with an understanding of Zillow's inherent data accuracy in your market would be a good start :) 

Being my first time, I'm unsure how to sift through all of this information and make an informed decision.

It can take a lot of time to sift through the resources that they have, but it is probably worth the investment of time if you have quite a bit of investment real estate. 

However, this approach could waste a lot of time sifting through properties that aren’t a fit or have already been contracted by other purchasers.To improve efficiency, you can set filters based on home characteristics, so you are instantaneously notified when a property becomes available that meets your pre-defined criteria.

If they've been at it for a while, they will have already sifted through the local guys & can tell you who's worth calling & who isn't.

I don't use my bank statements to help with taxes because I have a property manager on my properties so I send my accountants the year-end statement for all the properties, but if I were landlording myself, oh man I would definitely be referring to my bank statements (critical really, unless you want to do some major sifting). 

As a newer note investor you have to have the ability to sift through the BS and make your own determination on whether the deal is a good deal or not, ask me how I know .... smh.At the end of the day there is an incredible world open to those who are willing to take up the task of studying and becoming a note investor/ private lender. 

Sifting through the wees (percentages) tell me what all of this means in what matters....dollars.