4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use Zillow to Sell Your House
There are many sites available that claim to give insight into your home’s market price. While a site like this may be helpful for some things, we are going to discuss four major reasons it may not be quite the help you need.
It’s a matter of public record
The first thing to remember is that these sites use public records as a way of developing information on your home. This means it may only be as accurate as it was at the time the house was last sold. So, if you’re looking to compare your home to another, and the current homeowner has updated it, such as added a bathroom or finished the basement, it would not yet be a matter of public record and therefore not included in the sales comparison.
Is it truly comparable?
Real estate marketplace websites, like Zillow, are computer-based programs that are designed to take an area within a specified radius of the home for sale and use other homes in that area as comparable sales. Unfortunately, the closest comparable sales for your house aren’t always right up the street, and therefore not included in the comparison. It’s no fun to get your hopes up and believe your home is worth more than it may sell for in the current market.
What about the sub-markets?
You have the general market for real estate, but there are many sub-markets within. It is very important to know what drives the supply and demand in these tighter markets and public real estate sites simply are not designed to take this into consideration. For example, one street could bring a much higher price than the next and using a site like Zillow, would not have the proper algorithms to allow for specialties that the market may bear.
Accurate information
On these sites, the homeowner can control what details are added and deleted from their home’s listing making for a situation where details and value can be inaccurate. If the homeowner has made changes or improvements to their home, the site may not assess the true value of the work performed and may over or underestimate, which in turn gives an inaccurate estimate of the home altogether.
It is truly in your best interest to hire a real estate agent to compare properties and help you estimate the true value of your home. We would welcome the opportunity to help you at the Hodos Group of Long & Foster Real Estate. Give us a call today at (301) 644-1056.
Posted in Sellers