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Today we're going to talk whether Trulia and Zillow are trustworthy resources for real estate information. While perhaps these sites are a good place to start, we have experienced some of their inaccuracies first hand. For instance, we recently sold a home that has a market value of $850,000 - but if you look up that same home on Zillow and Trulia, they value it at $727,834 and $735,000 respectively. That's over $100,000 lower than the market value. In another case, we sold a home in one day for $699,000, whereas Zillow and Trulia valued at $501,000 and $557,574. That estimate is close to $200,000 too low! Why is it that these websites are so misleading?
- For one, it's hard for these sites to interpret location value. Trulia and Zillow can't take into account accessibility to shopping or public transportation, among other goods that may affect the value of your home.
- The same goes for lot values. One lot could be perfectly level while another is hanging off a cliff, but Trulia and Zillow wouldn't know the difference.
- Improvement values are not taken into account. Say two colonials have nothing in common but the year they were built - one is completely upgraded while the other is falling apart. There is no way for these online resources to be able to account for the difference in value.
- Another big problem is that, since 95% of homes are listed with brokers - Zillow and Trulia upload their information from the broker sites. This generates a lag - sometimes some of the best properties are already under contract by the time they show up on these sites. Other times, homes that have been off the market for quite some time show up as active listings.
