It was a heady week last week. The world was spinning around Zillow and I broke my pact to not talk about them ever on my blog. Then the backlinks started flying in. Flying being a slight overstatement, but I did get a couple on new links. Traffic went up, and that little mybloglog widget showed me that I was getting some new readers. Or some readers that I didn’t know I was getting before.
I was riding a Zillow high. Kevin Boer at 3 Oceans Real Estate had assured me that all would be OK if I adapted.
Now my newly found Zillow-love is fading. Larry Cragun has me scared again. He’s reminded me of that my fear of Zillow was not unfounded. I hated Zestimates before (because they were seriously flawed). It took me days this summer to understand why a set of buyers was chilling off on a home that I thought was a great value. I should have known my tech savvy clients were getting bad advice from a Zestimate that did not mesh with my carefully prepared CMA. Transferees, they did not quite know for sure who to trust. Zillow was about 25% off on the market value of the home they eventually bought.
Zillow, I guess I am fickle.
[tags]zillow, larry cragun, kevin boer, maureen mccabe[/tags]
Written by Maureen Francis
SKBK Sotheby's International Realty, 248.430.4450
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Larry Cragun 12.14.06 at 3:24 am
It is no big deal. you are just going to have to work triple time explaining the flaws in zestimates to sellers and buyers, over and over and over again. Lar
Larry Cragun 12.14.06 at 3:25 am
PS the spider represents our saturday bugs undressed feature. lar
John Lockwood 12.14.06 at 11:52 am
Well, you’re a bit of a backslider, but those of us in the community that never talks about what’s-their-name would be happy to welcome you back. Just say five Hail Marys and try not to do it again.
Toby & Sadie 12.14.06 at 12:49 pm
Hmm … Write about “you know who†and readership goes up? Might have to try that
I’ve been playing the game a bit as well. Yesterday, I took on the bubble bloggers and nothing. Jeez. I was pumped up looking for a couple nice new ways of spelling Realtor in my inbox. Even had a dream that one of them called me. Yeah. A handful of new readers but not as many as I was hoping.
Love the new look – if I haven’t told you already. It fits you such much better than the plain one you had before. Figuring out WordPress better? There are some cool widgets that you can add to it. I’ve actually turned it into a “mini CMS†for my site. We’ll see how that goes for me.
Athol Kay 12.14.06 at 2:15 pm
Which just means Zillow is more important to pay attention to than ever. You have to get on Zillow and tell your side of the story with an owners estimate etc.
jf.sellsius 12.15.06 at 12:24 pm
Welcome to the Z party. They make for good commentary because it’s hype versus help. Seeing every house online is, of course, helpful. Public data is helpful if it’s accurate, complete and fresh—but public data is not self-validating information & therefore not helpful enough to rely on. So you have to double check it anyway as part of your due diligence– so what time do you save? Having comps is helpful but how can you be sure an AVM picked the correct, accurate & freshest comps? You can’t. Not helpful.
Flawed zestimates beside good list prices don’t help either. Yet brokers flocking to list on Z will serve to validate the flawed zestimates, to some degree, and they will never leave. Can anyone say a flawed zestimate beside a list price has No effect on potential buyers?
Where is the control over what appears next to your listing? At the very least, an owner or agent should have the right to prohibit someone’s unsolicited opinion of what your listing is worth, especially if that value opinion is wrong. This other value tag that must be stuck next to yours should have EVERYONE up in arms. Next Z will have someone standing next to your lawn sign. All in the name of transparency. Watch for those who drop that buzzword as justification for someone publishing their wrong opinion of value of your property.
Seemingly, that free carrot of listings is a heady enticement for some to ignore the fact that someone other than the owner or you, the agent, is forcing you to accept something that may not be helpful in getting a buyer to call. It’s free so you shouldn’t complain, i guess.
(Im not talking about the case where the zestimate is accurate and you’d not want to remove it).
Z has courted real estate bloggers and some former critics have gone so far as to proclaim Z the next coming, a giant behemoth that will immediately kill off any competition. Pure hogwash IMO from those who have gotten the David G high-five. The real estate universe is immense and craigslist, Realtor.com. Re/Max, Yahoo/Pru, Google are all 900 lb gorillas who will coexist for a long time. If Z wants to disintermediate professionals, they may become “the†FSBO site and they will do fine. But to say Z will make extinct any other model or website are underestimating the diversity which is real estate and the hard working experienced professionals who add value to the transfer of property. That giving of value will NEVER become extinct.
BTW, love the new look.
Larry Cragun 01.16.07 at 4:47 pm
Hey, I think we got your snow storm. Please take it back. We want rain here.