How accurate is a zestimate? - YouTube

One question I have frequently asked is How accurate is a zestimate? and How

can I change the zestimate for my home? What is a zestimate and why should I

care? Keep listening and I will tell you why.

Welcome back I'm Marion Taylor Paolucci from RE/MAX Solutions in Clifton Park New York.

So let's talk about zestimates. Zillow is one of the most popular real

estate online databases. Zillow decided to estimate values on homes using an

algorithm. The exact details of that algorithm are kept secret but we do know

that the information is collected from public county and tax assessor records

and real estate sales data from the local Multiple Listing Service. But zestimates

are only as accurate as the data behind them so if the number of bedrooms or

bathrooms in a home, its square footage or its lot size are inaccurate on Zillow, the

Zestimate will be off. Zillow states its estimates can differ between five to

twenty percent of the sales price. Why should I care about Zillow's estimate of

my home? Well if you are going to sell it then you want the zestimate to be as

accurate as you can make it. When I ask buyers how did you hear about this

property, 99 percent of them tell me Zillow. So they already know Zillow's

estimate of the property before they even view the home. Buyers think if

Zillow states it...it must be true. But Zillow doesn't know that the home has

had recent upgrades..new kitchen, finished basement, landscaped patio. Zillow has

never been in your home. Can the Zestimate be updated? Yes. The Zestimate

accuracy depends on the amount of data they have from the home. Public records

can be outdated or lag behind, so it's best to update your home facts and fix

any incorrect or incomplete information - this will help you make your zestimate

as accurate as possible. You can also add information about the architectural

style, the roof type, the heat source the building amenities and more. Remember

Zillow can't measure what they don't know. Providing as much information as

possible about your home will yield the most accurate zestimate.

Another thing for sellers to pay attention to is if the home is a

townhouse or condo and the address is 1a or 1b Main Street. There will be two

estimates..one for 1A Main Street and one for 1 Main Street # A.

I suggest both addresses are updated with the current home facts. Let's look at

what we can do to change this estimate. So how do I change my Zillow estimate?

Let me show you right now. You would go to Zillow.com and you would enter your

address right here on this line and then you would get up your information on

your house. For training purposes I'm using this house here. It tells you the

address and here's your Zestimate. If you scroll down you'll see the facts and

figures of the house, the year it was built, the heating, the cooling, the

appliances, the school, the garage, the square footage, the lot size. You want to

make sure that it's correct and most of the time it's not going to be correct

because Zillow doesn't know what you've done in your house they're just

gathering this information from public records tax records information from

multiple listing services the last time your home was listed for sale. So you want to

go and change those facts. You want to go up to correct home facts.

Here it's going to ask you to fill in this information. If you don't have a

Zillow account you're going to have to sign up for one and once you claim the

home as your own you're going to go in and change your home facts. It says here

correcting these home facts will likely affect your zestimate so let's do that.

You want to look at your beds, your baths, your square footage. You may have

increased it..you may have put in a finished basement that's going to for most

markets will increase your square footage. Your structure, your model year,

your room details, your utility details, your basement, your floor covering. Zillow

doesn't know if you replaced the carpet with hardwood. Zillow doesn't know if you

put in a sunroom and Zillow doesn't know if you finished your basement and Zillow will

be the first one to tell you you need to go in here and you know check all the

features that apply to your house. So you would go through and you would add

everything that you needed to do.

You can add pictures if you'd like to and then you're going to save

everything. I noticed that our zestimate was off and

only that the purchase price five years ago and I knew a house down the street sold

for like quite a bit more so I went in and I changed ours. Zillow doesn't

know that we put in a finished basement or that we have a patio or that we did

other things to it so I went in and changed it. Our zestimate increased

$45,000 for 11.1% so that's a wowser

Definitely do it. I have a gentleman that's going to be selling his house

soon so we looked at his zestimate and it was very low and he had done a lot to

his house so he went in and looked at his zestimate and changed everything and

his estimate increased thirty thousand dollars which was 12.13%.

So again Zillow will be the first to tell you that it doesn't know what's in

your house so you need to go in and tell it what's in your house. BUYERS love

Zillow and they will go into Zillow and see what your zestimate is worth. So you want

to make sure that if you're thinking about selling your house in the near

future that you want to go in there and change it now. The change can take

anywhere from twenty four hours to three days to two weeks to a month.

Zillow is based on an algorithm so you need to

help them along and put in the correct information and hopefully your zestimate

will increase. Again if it doesn't increase overnight it will...it will

increase as long as you put in all the facts and there's a significant change

if you are trying to sell your house in the 518 area code or thinking about

selling your house, please feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to answer your

questions and do whatever I can to assist you. So I hope this helps. Thanks

for watching and if you like this video please like and comment below and

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Thank you.