Online Home Valuations update - Over 125K difference between sites.
by Matt
Trang sent me an email today that KW has partnered with Cyberhomes.com to market KW listings. This was the first time I have seen cyberhomes, and I saw they have an online house value estimator, so I I thought I would put their values up against the other online estimators that I already know about. Cyberhomes is powered by Fidelity National Title, so I was expecting their information to be very comparable to Zillow (The leader in online property values).
Let's start by looking at the web ranking:
Now, My House Details
Bought in Oct 2005, as a 2 Bed, 1 Bath. Converted about 6 months after to a 4 bed, 2 bath.
The Cold Hard Facts:
Cyberhomes.com
Estimated value: 777K, Beds= n/a, Baths = 2, 2 Month value change=Down 77K (Ouch!).
I'm dissapointed that they have the beds and baths wrong…especially since they are title company. I'm also dissapointed in the price, since I gander at my zestimate every now and then, I know this is way below.
Trang's reaction: "That's crazy..they're totally wrong!!!!!!"
Zillow.com
Estimated value: 894K, Beds= 4, Baths = 2, 1 Month value change=Up 32K (I love you).
that's more like it, I can't remember if I went in a changed the beds and baths, I don't think so.
RealestateABC.com
Estimated value: 723K, Beds= n/a, Baths = 1, 1 , they do not provide value change.
Not much to say here
Reply.com
Estimated value: 779K, Beds= 0, Baths = 1, 1 , they do not provide value change.
Not much here either…this site has a few errors, and I think they do provide a price trend, but it was not working.
Results:
Zillow is the winner, not because they priced my house higher, but because they had the correct information and priced my house higher. But with a high of $894K and a low of $723K, I'm not too confident with the results.
On a side note, I really wish the other players would release their data as an api, like Zillow does, so I could put them all together in a simple search, but I doubt that will happen.
Tags:zillowPopularity: 25% [?]
Its interesting with the number of people in this field if alot of
May 26th, 2007 at 5:31 pmventure capital is going to be lost. I assume alot of these companies
are going the way of goto and all the search engines that existed a
few years ago.
Hi Matt
You missed HomeGain.
HomeGain has more traffic than all those companies above combined!
http://snapshot.compete.com/homegain.com+zillow.com+cyberhomes.com?metric=uv
AND HomeGain also has an instant homevaluation tool.
This current tool is the descendant of the HVAL tool that HomeGain had on its web site from 1999-2001!
It requires no registration.
Interesting to see all the hype these tools are generating.
try HomeGain’s tool at http://www.homegain.com
Also for some differences between HomeGain and Zillow see
May 27th, 2007 at 11:17 am“Why HomeGain Beats Zillow”
http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/why-homegain-beats-zillow
Ok,
Here are homegain.com stats for my house:
Value estimate: $677,004 - $794,743
and Homegain displays my house as a 0 bed - 2 bath home
Again, I choose Zillow, because I know we have updated the tax records a long time ago to reflect the additional beds and baths. Seems Homegain has the baths, but missing the beds.
May 27th, 2007 at 11:38 amhi Matt
thanks for trying our tool. Please give me your address and I will check why the bed number is off.
Did you read the blog thread Why HomeGain Beats Zillow? (link above)
These valuation estimates really aren’t accurate and can’t be because they are based on comparable sales and no two houses are alike.
Regards
May 28th, 2007 at 2:04 pmLouis
Here are the latest May numbers
Seems like Zillow hasn’t gained any traction since last year-so much for changing the entire face of real estate.
The novelty of automated valuation machines seems to have worn off.
http://snapshot.compete.com/zillow.com+homegain.com+reply.com?metric=uv
June 9th, 2007 at 6:46 pm[…] Zillow just announced that they will allow brokers to add their listing feeds to Zillow for free. The pitch ? Over 4 million eyeballs per month to showoff your listings! The free listing carrot worked for Cyberhomes and it has been working for Trulia, so would a broker that is already submitting their listings to Cyberhomes, Realtor.com, and Trulia feed their precious assets to Zillow as well ? Well the simple answer is that brokers SHOULD because listings should be marketed everywhere, but we all know that real estate is much more complicated than that, so we'll have to watch and see. This move corroborates the very fact that listings are imperative in attracting and retaining online real estate traffic. […]
June 14th, 2007 at 9:01 pmHomeGain’s valuation tool was inaccurate between 1999 and 2001 and it is the main reason it was removed from the site. However, HomeGain’s envy of the popularity of Zillow’s Zestimate prompted them to re-introduce their inaccurate tool once again in 2006. Years of sitting in the shelf did not make their tool any more accurate.
A class action lawsuit was filed against HomeGain.
If you are interested please access the court documents by going to:
http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/fortecgi/fortecgi.exe?ServiceName=DomainWebService&TemplateName=index.html
Then click on Case Summary and enter the case number: RG05246985. Any comments from HomeGain General Manager Louis Cammarosano
July 1st, 2007 at 4:56 pm[…] Zillow is a lot different today. At last years SF Real Estate Connect, they had a humorous “10 Things Zillow learned about real estate”. See, Zillow ’s CEO , Barton, was also the founder of Expedia. He changed online travel and was planning to do the same to real estate. Well, real estate is a lot different then travel, so the road was very rocky, and instead of removing all real estate agents, Zillow has transformed into an embracing marketing tool for Realtors. This is due to the fact that Zestimate (Zillow’s online CMA) are not that accurate. […]
July 11th, 2007 at 12:03 pmBrett Shaw from Cyberhomes:
Hey Matt, just want to comment on your findings. Judging from your post, all you did was plug in your address and record the results. Did you ever see the refine value button right beside the estimate? I am not sure why it was listed as 0 BR, but if Realestateabc.com, Reply.com, Homegain, and Cyberhomes have it as that, then something is recorded wrong somewhere.
All this aside, you can enter in that you have 4 BR and 2BA as well as correct any other discrepancies like square footage, lot size, # of rooms. In addition, you can adjust for any improvements to the property and home conditions. You can even adjust for view and privacy. I encourage you to go back to Cyberhomes and see what comes up after your updates have been taken into account. Thanks for giving us a try.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:20 pm