What Are the Pros and Cons of Zillow?

St. Louis Real Estate Video Blog with Barbara Balossi

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Our latest real estate video update comes to you from Austin, Texas. The Balossi Team is on the road at one of Keller Williams' annual events, called Mega Camp. It's a great opportunity for us to meet with some of our top vendors. Today, we talked to Sarah from Zillow, who gave us some great information about how it can be used most effectively.

The Zestimate should be viewed as a starting point value of a home. People often make the mistake of confusing it with an appraisal, but by no means does Zillow claim to have the necessary information to give an accurate appraisal. Rather, Zillow gathers information from 3 different sources: public records, tax assessments, and comparable home sales. These data points are then put into Zillow's algorithm, which comes up with a Zestimate. The average median error is +-8% which is why it's not called a 'Zactimate' or a 'Zappraisal.'

The CEO of Zillow has said that one of the goals of the site is to keep the agent as the central point of the real estate transaction. The Zestimate is a tool that should be verified by an agent, because the value is often too high or too low. It's definitely worth having a conversation with an expert before getting to excited or discouraged about your Zestimate.

As you can see, Zillow plays an important role at the beginning of the home search. But once you get serious, you should work with an agent. That's what we're here for! Call or email us today if you are ready to buy or sell a home in St Louis. We'll make your real estate experience one to remember!