There was a website posted a while back that listed (admittedly over-inflated) home values. Anything I search for on Google is delayed gratification, send-your-info-to-a-realtor type stuff. Anyone know what that web site was from the previous post? It was probably about 3-4 months ago.

 

zillow.com

 

zillow.com has horrible prices, but great graphics.

I know of a company that has excellent price data; their website will be up in, I'm told, 2 - 3 weeks. I'll post the link when it's available.

 

Also RealestateABC.com. Nobody's web pricing is great. They work off square footage, lot size, and number of rooms but don't account for materials of construction, basic condition, or improvements. They are good for locating the comparables though. Then you have to go inspect them to see how they really compare.

 

How often do they refresh their data? My house still isn't listed and it's nearly two years old.

Also, they have a lot of erroneous data. My mother's house was listed as having 2 beds / 1.5 baths. In reality it's 4 beds / 2 baths, I'm sure most of the comparable houses they use suffer from the same bad data.

 

i used zillow.com a little, it was functional.

just like determining the value of a used car, you really need to look at several sources kbb.com, edmonds etc.

 

Why?

 

Out of curiosity, how much do you know about the inner workings of automated home valuation systems?

There are five major firms in the US which have created AVM - automated valuation method - systems: Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or FHLMC), First American Title, Fidelity National Financial (FNF), Case Schiller Weiss (CSW), and Veros Software. Of those five, to the best of my knowledge, only First American and Veros offer insurable home valuations - the acid test for accuracy.

This information comes from one of the designers and developers of these systems.

To be accurate, square footage, lot size, and number of rooms are only three of the dozens of factors these systems use to determine a home value.

 

Zillow blows. It is at least $200K low for my house. It doesn't accurately keep up with the inflated SoCal market.

 

Also, the county I live in has a website listing the property values they use to determine your property tax bill.