Nov. 19, 2006 - Test your Zesitmate. Is your Zillow Value correct?
Hi Jillayne,
In answer to your question on this post, I had a lot of fun taking the publicly available site ride. Thanks!
Instead of looking up the stats for your neighborhood in Edmonds, I went straight to "How can you value your own home using publicly available sources?" That seemed more like a thing a homeowner might do for fun. Another way to phrase that question might be, "How do I test my Zestimate for accuracy?" or " Is my Zillow value correct?"
That seemed more like what a homeowner might do for fun, than running stats. Running stats is an "area" thing to do, not a "neighborhood" thing to do. When looking at neighborhood, you are more doing an "online CMA" than a stat scenario like the one I did for Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland.
First I valued your house and came up with a list price of $399,999. Then I tried to do it with Zillow, and as you probably know, it says $341,004. Then I went to the John L. Scott site and couldn't find your "significant other" that sold in May/June. I say May/June because it was a May decision as to price and a June close. So "for fun" best answer is still to Zillow your neighborhood, but that could be $50,000 off, as it appears to be in your case.
Here's the deal. You've got that house up the street from you, before you get to 80th Ave, asking $459,900 on market for over 100 days. Then you've got that house in the next section off 80th Ave., on 187th place, that sold for $380,950 in May/June. Both of those were tri-levels, like yours. So these two are your "significant others". Now Zillow both of those and yours and click on "See Home Details". All three properties have a land assessed value of $137,000. You can make adjustments if you want for "better" location, but they appear to be fairly equal and I'd treat them that way. Now look at "assessed value of buildings". Yours is $106,000, the one that sold is $101,200 and the one for sale is $113,400. Now just do the math.
Sale price of $380,950 divided by $101,200 times $106,000 puts your home value at $399,018. Now go to the house for sale and take $380,950 divided by $101,200 times $113,400 and it should sell for $426,874.80 or thereabouts. Likely it should have been listed originally at no more than $449,950 and better yet at $439,950 or $429,950. Looks like they used a comp in Seaview with a much higer land assessment of $170,000 plus as the comp to set that price. Anyway, back to you. If that house sells for $420,000 to $430,000, that verifies your "asking price" of $399,950. It could bid up over $400,000 as the $380,950 bid up from $369,950, or it could sell at $390,000 or $395,000.
Of course I don't know you, and have only been to Edmond's once for a Christmas Party where I was pretty tipsy most of the night. I've never seen the inside OR outside of your house, given you bought it in 2001 and the archives didn't retain even the curb appeal photo. But I'd say Zillow is low by about $50,000 because they appear to be overweighting a sale near you from January of 2006. Zillow should probably tighten up those dates and weightings, and not overweight sales in 1/2006 that are really 2005 season holdovers, and more heavily weight the sales from the 2006 season, at this point. Maybe they can weight sales in the last 3 months at 50%, previous 3 months at 40% and the rest at 10%. That might work.
So Zillow is your best vehicle to use as a consumer to value your house, if you make the following modifications. Find the most recent sales and pick the 2-3 "Significant Others". These are not necessarily the ones closest to you, but the ones that have equal land values when you click on the "see home details" and the ones that have the same style as your house. Valuing a tri-level with a full two story, will not be as accurate as using other tri-levels as your comps. You can use total assessed value and just divide the house that sold times it's total assessed value and then multiply that answer by your assessed value. All of that is available on Zillow. For you, using properties with the same land assessment, and dividing only by building assessment works better, as you can tell from the house not sold up the street. It's as close as you can get and works really well.
What do you think? Given what I've said above, am I right at an asking price of $399,999 for your house? Or is Zillow right at their $341,004? Depends somewhat on your kitchen and baths, and whether or not and when they were updated since the home was built in 1958.
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