Zillow reviews

My experience of adding two listings for rental is just ridiculously horrible. After I add the first listing, it is showing on the search but the detail info and photos belonged to another home. You report the problem but there is no response.

Zillow's estimates are so ridiculously inaccurate. Last month they had my house estimated in the upper 100,000. to lower 200,000. range and now they have it in the low 50's. This is unbelievable. Bank appraisal has it at 140,000.- As stated previously, they have no idea how old furnace/central air is, how old the roof is, when it was updated/remodeled, etc. I talked to a few realtors and they said they never, ever go by Zillow because of the inaccuracies.

On November 25th 2014, I was contacted by a sales associate William Simmons. He has contacted me via text message regarding a Macomb Township zip code 48044 and asked if I would be interested. He then mentioned that I would have 4,573 views a month for a fee of $615 per month. I told him that seemed steep for the price. He then asked to get a lender to split the cost. I hesitated for a bit and he sent another message stating that there were 51 people on the waiting list and it would be gone within the hour. When I asked how many agents are in rotation, Will stated "it depends on the zip, all you need to worry about is that I would be one of 3 agents featured, 4,573 times per month and that it's very exclusive". I was told I would get a ton of leads off this zip. I agreed based on those terms. Once signed, I requested some further information once I had a lender involved (around Christmas time). Will, stated on speaker phone with my lender in my office that there were about 6 agents featured. I asked what happened to 3? No response. He then stated that the way to get business was to have a ton of reviews on their site (never discussed before). After hanging up I sent an email to him stating my disappointment and that he lied to me. It had been a month without a single contact or lead from Zillow and the 48044 zip I invested into. I even filled out a dissatisfaction survey. I was followed up by Michael Gunn who is apparently the Success Manager. Him and I spoke and I told him my side. He said that was disappointed on how things had happened and offered exposure in 5 other zip codes for a 99% discount. Obviously, I was disappointed in the fact that not only was I being screwed over by their sales practice, but also had to pay additional to help me get more possible business. I told him no. I would like to have nothing further to do with this and I would like reimbursement for what I have paid in. He said he would be in contact with Will's manager and get back to me (that was last week). I emailed Michael on Monday and asked when I can expect to hear back from him. Yesterday, Michael Gunn called and mentioned that it's only been a short time and I didn't give it much chance. He then started to mention that I would have to buy out the remainder of my contract. This is total garbage. People need to know of this practice. There are a ton of agents out there trying to capture new business. ZILLOW IS A SCAM FOR AGENTS!

I am a Real Estate Broker in NY. I wanted to list a house for sale in ZILLOW's website. I was convinced from a salesman in ZILLOW to sign up a contract for 14 listings (even thought I only had one listing ) and pay for a six month membership on monthly installments.
When I posted my listing, in December of 2014, I found out that ZILLOW's computer system had picked up a litigation that my client had back in July of 2014 with his Bank and the property appeared in their system as if it is "pending foreclosure". I asked them to remove this notification which was very damaging for my client / seller. In addition, even thought it was my listing (and I was paying for posting it in their website) ZILLOW was advertising "FORECLOSURE SPECIALISTS" to help the potential customers. My name as a Listing broker was not there!!!
The price for the property was not appearing on my listing and only ZILLOW'S estimate was shown which was $800,000 less than the listing price.!!!!!
When I asked to delete the listing completely from their system because it was damaging my client's as well as my interest (and reputation) I was told from the salesman (who was very nice until then) that I have to pay the entire contract even though I "used" their services for 5 weeks.
I am NOT saying that ZILLOW is a scam, but definitely until they fix all their issues...with their system and understanding a little better NY and other States, they should be flexible with their rigid contract policies.
Here I am... paying for a listing which damaging my client and NOT only I can NOT remove my listing from the system but I have to continue paying for a service which is harmful to my business.
I hope other brokers will read this and avoid costly mistakes. ZILLOW has very long way to become valuable...DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY

Zillow does not give accurate reviews of lenders. If you had a bad experience with a lender as I did with First Federal Bank of Kansas City, MO then you do not use the bank as a result of the bad experience, then Zillow tells you they won't use your review because you did not get locked into a contract with the bank. Well thank goodness my review did not qualify! I suspect Zillow may recieve monetary compensation for good reviews and that they post good reviews about banks that are written by the bank.

I agree with other reviews that Zillow is horrible in managing customer relations. While my home was properly listed for years, someone at Zillow changed my listing and posted another house in my location. They apparently confused a house on Callowhill St. with mine on Callowhill Rd. It is an understandable mistake, but I am shocked that my dozens of requests to correct the issue have gone completely ignored for almost 2 years. I hope that this does not become a problem when I need to sell my home.
Once Zillow Corrects my issue, I will update my review with the experience. Until that time trust me in saying that ZIllow must have the worst customer service I have ever experienced. So much so that it triggered me to write this, my first negative review ever for anyone.

This is without a doubt the worst company I have ever seen as far as customer service and trying to get a resolution to a problem.

You can put your house on Zillow for free as in for sale by owner, however, the remaining information on the page is generated by Zillow and is usually quite inaccurate. I have no idea how an internet site can "zestimate" the value of your home (unless they are asking realtors). This can be pretty damning. The internet doesn't know when the house was reroofed, whether or not the neighborhood is safe, or when the furnace was replaced. I have consistently seen the square footage or property taxes NOT match the county assessor's website. I can only say that it's okay to look, but don't take their website information as truth. Buying a house is a big investment.

Fake reviews of real estate agents usually put up by agents themselves. Waste of time & money advertising because the leads are the account managers trying to get you to think zillow actually works.

This is a horrible company that destroys housing values and should be taken completely off the internet. Zillow is a leach. They really do not warrant even 1 star however this site requires at least 1 star in order to post.

I am a statistician and I can tell you that their algorithm produces invalid results. Anyone in my profession would view the fact that they publish such reaults as unprofessional. The fact that the results injure so many people makes the behavior unethical. (No surprise given recent reports of harrassment and discrimination.) I challenge Spencer Rascoff to change his ways; if he doesn't, I challenge those injured by him to find a Congressperson to regulate him under commerce and consumer protection laws.

The lights are on at ZILLOW BUT NO ONE IS HOME.
There customer service SUCKS.
I have been trying to get my property's TAX information corrected for over a month now. They finally told me it was fixed now my property has the house next doors tax information. and my home comes ups (2 UNITS)I think they hire kids for the summer to do this work.
ZILLOW is A JOKE!

There are so many scams on this website. Consumers beware.
Fake rentals and rent to own scams that are only out to steal money from consumers.
As a Realtor, I can spot them immediately but a consumer may not know the signs.

Dishonest sales reps...they tell you what you want to hear to get your money and then it turns out that it's ALL total BS. The customer service reps don't listen to you. And the cherry on top? When your contract ends, they begin billing you month-to-month!

Zillow: A publicly traded corporation that needs to immediately take down it's so called Zestimates until they can figure out how to resolve major problems with evaluations. e.g similar waterfront homes where three of four sold this year.
10425 Manitou Beach, Bainbridge Island. Sold 2/24/14 for $1.11K - Zillow shows 957K
10475 Manitou Beach, Bainbridge Island. Sold 6/24/14 for $1.31K - Zillow shows $1.20K
10305 Manitou Beach, Bainbridge Island. Sold 8/15/14 for $1.10K- Zillow shows $888K
10425 Falk Road Rd, Bainbridge Island, No listed but very similar - Zillow shows $746K

I listed my house with zillow because they had it estimated at over $273,000, I listed it for $269,900, almost immediately they reduced it to $251,000 and a few days later they reduced it to $247,000 so I complained to the about this and they sent a message back that this is done by algorithm. and than reduced it to $245,000. I believe something should be done about this company. I did not check that allows Real Estate agents to contact me, maybe that's why.

Zillow leaves a lot to be desired but it's a good place to start researching. The visuals alone do that.

I wish they would add a feature that allows searches by the number of levels a house has--one story; two stories (or more); unfinished basement; finished basement, etc.

The thing is, a LOT of us are getting older and only want to consider a one-story home. Falls are a concern, but even more than that is the day-to-day difficulty of climbing and going down stairs.

I don't see how homes can gain or drop thousands in days..we lost a new home loan because of this company..i would join anyone suing them..

I'd like to start out by saying that I've been recently trying to sell my home and noticed that Zillow's estimate on my home has been consistently dropping in price while my neighbors home value next door has been over valued. I'm basing this on square footage (my home has 2250 sq ft and my neighbors house has 1750 sq ft). I have a four bedroom house and my neighbor's house has three bedrooms. My house has so many more amenities than my neighbor's house I just didn't understand the process by which they arrived at these numbers so I wrote them. BIG MISTAKE! They told me that they will be using new data to re calculate estimates. Instead my home value has continued to de value and my neighbors house continues to increase in value. There is approximately $70,000. difference right now. Do not rely on Zillow, they grossly miscalculate home values and do not correct their errors when it is brought to their attention; they almost seem vindictive!

Be very cautious with using any information this company provides. Their so called algorithms are ridiculously incorrect. Their estimations of property values can be easily proven way off of the mark. It also appears that if you make an honest attempt to correct their errors they become vindictive and "adjust" their charts to prove their correctness. I feel there should be a formal investigation into their practices. National Realtors should do this and form a class action lawsuit if these bad practices are proven correct. There is no way a potential customer looking for a house in my area will get usable information when information provided by them is so inaccurate..

I don't know how they figure prices. In my neighborhood a 2 bedroom 1700 sq. ft. house sold for 490,000 dollars and the house across the street sold for 520,000 and it was a 3 bedroom 1730 sq. ft. house. When you go on Zillow and check the price of my house which is 3 bedroom 1828 sq. ft. house it's listed by Zillow as 426,000. The zestimates are completely inaccurate.

Zillow is a terrible website to use when searching for a place. Why is it that you can't put 1-2, 3-4, just 1, just 2 bedrooms, etc.? It always has to be X+ whatever you're looking for. Why is it that when I put the maximum willing to pay for rent at a certain price point the right side consistently comes up with things WAY out of my price range? Or homes that are 6 bedrooms when all I want is one or two? Don't even get me started on how badly it "sorts" the homes/apartments, also. "Low to high" is a lie. Scrolling down I see 1,386, 1,209, 1690, 864. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I'm sure I'm not using the site wrong, I'm sure it's just a terrible site. I've had better luck just looking at Google maps. Seriously.

ZILLOW CAUSES INCALCULABLE DAMAGE BY THEIR COMPLETELY BOGUS ESTIMATES OF HOME VALUE. THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO WAY FOR A SELLER TO CONTEST A TERRIBLE ESTIMATE IS UNCONSCIONABLE. IF ANYONE WANTS TO START A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST ZILLOW I WILL BE AMONG THE FIRST TO WRITE A CHECK TO SUPPORT THAT. THEIR SECRET ALGORITHM MUST HAVE BEEN DESIGNED BY PEOPLE WITH NO REAL ESTATE BACKGROUND. MY INDEPENDENT APPRAISAL BY A CERTIFIED APPRAISER WITH THIRTY YEARS EXPERIENCE IN MY AREA IS $150,000 HIGHER THAN ZILLOW. I ABHOR ZILLOW AND WOULD LIKE TO SEE THEM PUT OUT OF BUSINESS.

Zillow is horrible to you if you are trying to sell your house by owner. Your pictures do not even show up properly. It is malicious activity that they do to you. They under assessed my property by $60,000 but kept a neighbors at over $40,000 over their assessed price. I contacted them several times. They do not care.

Sellers take action against Zillow's damaging information one solution:

My property is currently on the market in Danbury CT since March 2014 the problem is the same as every seller is and has experienced with Zillow across the U.S.....inaccurate damaging zesitmate numbers. I've spoken to my real estate agent numerous times about correcting it however there is no way for an agent or FSBO to correct the zesitmate number. In addition my agent was recently locked out of her own Zillow account with no other way to make contact with Zillow except by email.

Since March 2014 my agent has received one (1) inquiry via email about my property that individual said nice property priced to high according to the zestimate. With that I took action ASAP. I insisted that the agency remove my listing from Zillow's web site completely. I do not believe this will hurt the properties exposure since its accurately being advertised on all other web sites and Zillow has not produced a viable buyer.

I recently came across an article on line dated 9/11/2014 in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Northwood Realty of Pittsburgh PA recently pulled all their listings from Zillow for the same reason. I commend them for taking action against this company. I can only hope that other real estate agencies will do the same.

Thanks
Stuck In Danbury



Sellers have the choice not to have their property listed on Zillow. Maybe if more sellers did this and not use Zillow's web site that would send a clear message to them.

I have no problem with aggregators in real estate. They can serve a positive purpose in the business. I do have a problem with Zillow and its errors. I have a problem not mentioned by others. The Zillow map is inaccurate. My town's map doesn't include about 1/3 of the town. We've complained to Zillow and their response has been to admit their map is wrong but they won't fix it for another four months. When people use the site they never have a chance to see properties in the omitted section of town. If Zillow was seriously responsible, they would correct the map now. Every real estate professional in town knows that sellers are being damaged by Zillow with their faulty Zestimates but not everyone knows sellers are being damaged by the map problem. It is pure arrogance on Zillow's part to admit they have a problem with their map but refuse to fix it for several months.

Zillow grossly overrated my home by 70k when I bought it in 2008 from a bank and in rough condition. Now with over $ 50k in improvements, they have grossly undervalued its value (they diminished 1/5 of its value within the last 30 days although home sales prices are trending upward in this area.). Similar houses in my area are selling in the mid $160k range, and they priced me at $115k. When I contacted them, they provided a canned and useless response. The result is that I own one of the larger and more updated homes on my street, and Zillow has it listed as a fire sale.

Their unwanted ads pop up in my inbox thru GO SMS text app almost every day. I have made repeated requests to them to stop, but the ads just keep coming. They are an unscrupulous company and you'd have to be crazy to have anything to do with them. I'll just keep telling people in every forum I can find until the harassment stops. DO NOT USE ZILLOW!!!

I own two homes in wv, but in different county. they have them both over listed i am trying to resell one. therefore i made a aaccount to try to adjust the price with no luck. so both the house are listed for 4.5-10 times more then there actually worth.

This site has completely made up numbers

They use a computer to appraise my house? I have had every realtor tell me that because of the low Zillow number, the close on the actual value of the house is hard for the buyer to justify. It is the mindless fear that is somewhat justified that people believe what they see on the web, as fact. For that reason, zillow is robbing me of my opportunity to sell the house at the true market price. With these vampires on the market, only areas that their computers think have value will appreciate.

So my house with 5200 sq ft living space, with high end finishes, plus a 3200 sq ft framed out basement with a finished wine cellar and 3 car garage is worth only $40,000 more than a 3200 sq ft house with no basement and a 2 car garage..both sitting right next to each other on 20 acre parcels with killer views. Zillow is useless in my book. Perhaps it has some value in a densely housed area with cookie cutter tract homes, but for anything else it isn't worth the powder to blow it away.

Zillow is not even worth one Star it is such a pathetic source for values. Hopefully buyers and sellers both realize that fact and pay no attention to their values. Lowered the value of my house $40,000 in 3 days without any changes to the property in a major national boom area.

Zillow is a pile of crap. Bringing as many property listings as possible into one place is fine. But their "Zestimate" of a home's value is inaccurate. By making a long distance guess of a home's value without sending a qualified, experienced local appraiser to the property is bunk. They are artifically manipulating the market by telling potential buyers an incorrect property value. This practice should be illegal as it constitutes a potential robbery of the seller's equity. We had a market analysis and an appraisal of our property done by independent companies and yet Zillow "Zestimated" the value 10's of thousands of dollars less than both. No wonder we haven't sold yet!

As first time buyers, my fiancé and I were very fortunate to find Mala Vaish through the internet. We had initially worked with a previous realtor and then started to look elsewhere when our expectations weren’t being met. Mala was a breath of fresh air! She is extremely responsive, always available, a trusted resource and a true expert in the market.
We had been looking for a home for over a year. After working with Mala for only 2 weeks, she found us the house of our dreams! The day we found our home, Mala re-arranged her schedule to help us put in an offer and skillfully guided us to wining a bidding war without going out of our budget.
Throughout the process, Mala continually sent us updates on progress along with things to be thinking about. Mala went above and beyond the call of duty; she provided excellent referrals to help us secure a Real Estate Attorney, Inspection Company and later even gave referrals on local cable/internet companies, sanitation departments etc. to ensure a successful transition into our new home.
Mala is a true trusted advisor! Being a first-time buyer, the process can be confusing, frustrating, stressful etc. but we were able to sleep easy knowing that Mala was on the case. She wouldn’t let anyone take advantage of us and did a lot of hard negotiating on our behalf.
Mala Vaish is wonderful and I strongly recommend her to everyone in need of a new home. If you want best-in-class, Mala is the way to go!

I am specifically reviewing Zillow mortgage page/tab. Do not waste your time there. it will give you a quote from several lenders that are just made-up quotes and ARE NOT backed up by the lenders
Once they call you (I suggest you do not put your real phone number there or they will bug you for several days) you realize that the quotes you got on Zillow are not real, and the real quotes are much higher (even when you call the same day - 15 min later)
DO NOT TRUST RATE AND FEE QUOTES AT ZILLOW
look elsewhere

My experience with Bibi Zanella and Beatrice Zanella Dusheiko was the most honest and remarkable pleasant, professional experience of my lifetime. She is skillful, compassionate, meticulous and dedicated beyond the realm of her responsibility as a short sale expert. She takes her commitment to a level that most could never comprehend. She does not give up and spends endless hours achieving success no matter how long it takes. She is genuinely captivating and inspired me when I felt hopeless. She gave me support and encouraged me to have faith and believe that no matter how horrible life may seem there is always a rainbow at the end of the tunnel. When you have Bibi Zanella and Beatrice Zanella Dusheiko on your team you can be assured your world will change. She is one in a million and takes her position to it highest level of victory. She is a masterpiece within her field and has an ingenious way of calming people when they are feeling lost and afraid. She comforted me and inspired me for many months and furnished far more than required. She is immensity intelligent and knows how to communicate in a gentle and effective way. I would recommend her to anyone searching for a woman with a phenomenal background in her field. With her years of dedication she is guaranteed to provide you and assist you with all your questions and have a positive outcome. More importunity she makes you feel " special " in a manner that no other is quit capable of doing. This is essential because she is magnificent at what she does which is helping people sell there homes regardless of the circumstances. She is non judgmental. She cares and is remarkably honest. I was honored to have her guidance and knowledge and she is admired magnanimously. She is truly a monumental individual and is bounteous as her position as an Agent at Florida Premiere Realty . I give her a score of one million percent considering she is extraordinary and idolized more than I can formulate into words that would adequately express my homage and compliments she so richly deserves. She is exceedingly reliable and pledges to complete each case with a favorable resolution.
Thank you ! Marcie Lynne Silverstein

My husband and I used Miller Laine for our possible investment. They were really nice and helpful. Very easy to talk to, and very polite.

Zillow's priprietary formula for calucating home costs changes constantly and thus my home value swings wildly between 125% to %40 of my true home value, depending on what day you look at it. Never trust a "company" built around bad software.

Zillow has been showing values in our neighborhood going up.However recently they have showed the value of our house going down and every house around us going up. Dont get it we own and maintain our house and is the best looking house on the block, landscaped, New 50 year roof, wood floors and tile downstairs, painted inside etc. But they are saying rent houses values with none of this are valued a lot higher than ours. Something is wrong with this website don't believe what they write.

According to Zillow, the value of my property was going up, up, up between 2011 and 2012, despite the fact that real estate prices overall in my neighborhood were fairly stagnant. In fact, they estimated that it had almost doubled in value. Based upon what?

But since 2011, my property has been going down, down, down, despite the fact that the real estate market in my neighborhood has gone up slightly in the past couple of years.

The comparison graphs for my neighborhood vs. my house show my neighborhood going up and down slightly, but my house went up sharply, nearly doubling in value, and then dropped precipitously to below the estimate in 2011. And this does not at all dove tail with what was happening in the local market.

Seeing what they have down with the estimates for my home, I can never take their estimates seriously again. Despite the fact that housing prices in my neighborhood have been gradually recovering, mine has been dropping by about 30K per month for the past year. I would love to know the calculus that goes into Zillow's apparent estimate nonsense.

So what does Zillow.com really do? Of over 12 calls to leasing agents for property posted for rent in the San Antonio area, only ONE agent emailed me back. I was talking with another friend who had exactly the same experience. We had a good laugh but are extremely frustrated. Being out of town makes it VERY difficult to find something suitable to rent. I can't recommend Zillow listings.

CAVAET EMPTOR. As a consumer, I cannot recommend Zillow. I wrote a
review on their website about a real estate "professional" who I had
very negative interactions with - and zillow chose not to publish it without even telling me why. I came to the conclusion that Zillow really works for real estate pros and protects them because it is all one big real estate "brotherhood".
This "pro" has stellar reviews on Zillow (most likely written by
himself) but every other website reviews show him just the opposite.
C'mon Zillow work fairly and honestly with both sides: realtors and
consumers. It might go a long way towards cleaning up your own "C-"
rating on the BBB site.

Also be very careful submitting reviews to Zillow - the following comes from Zillows rules and policies to realtors regarding on-line reviews:

QUOTE
"Will I know who has reviewed me?
When you receive an email notifying you of a review, you can see the username and profile of the person who has reviewed you, and, if provided, the address where the service was provided and the approximate sale price, if a home was bought and sold, as well as the year the transaction took place."

I am a realtor in Kansas and I spent TOO much money on Zillow. Like many others... I got nothing but bad leads. Total waste of money! To top it all off... I sent them a cancellation notice at the end of the month before the next billing cycle started and they not only charged me a cancellation for the following months... they also charged me the full ad rate for the next month which was scheduled to start in the next couple days. These people don't operate with morals or ethics so beware. They produce fake leads in addition to bad leads. I'm sure they produce some good leads too... I just wasn't fortunate enough to receive any of them.

They just dropped our house's value again, which coincided with our property tax increase based on VALUE. The house behind me is for sale. It is a stripped down version of my house. Mine is ALL brick, this one is all hardi plank, our pool is much larger, our finishes within the house are the TOP of the line, their house is basic, and the cost put into building it is apparent. they are both 6500 square feet, and mine has an elevator, a theater room, a billiard room, a HUGE master bedroom suite, Italian marble kitchen countertops, the list goes on. Where does Zillow get their nerve, saying they use reliable sources. Come visit my hosue, zillow!

Our house was showing $230K week 1, $250K week 2, $259k week 3, $222k week 4, and the vaulation curve has also been changed. This seems a bit dramatic to me. House nearbvy all similar and their pricing is all over the place, there is no consistency.

Recent numbers are changing massively, sometimes weekly, with no basis in fact.
For example, a house across the street from me, two doors down, just dropped from $590k to $520k over the past week with the entire past history price chart revised as if the high valuation (which was consistent over many months prior) had never existed.

The strangest and most clearly defective part is that this house sold last month, just closed and the new owner moved in over the past weekend. The sale price was $588k. How could it suddenly be worth almost $70,000 less? It can't. Zillow is calculating on defective formulas, using bad data and is unreliable and dishonest in reporting past valuation and valuation trends.

If zillow is crapping on your house value, return the favor - box up and anonymously send them some dog poop. we shouldn't have to tell them everything about our homes to improve our value on their site. Instead, if they get enough dog poop from a certain area code, they'll get the picture that their is something wrong with their model there...

Agree with most of the other posts here - the price data they have on zillow is just wrong. Two roughly identical houses on my street - one valued at $1.9M, the other at $1.2M. Same bedroom, bath, sq. ft., acreage, amenities, etc. Don't bother with this site - it's useless.

They have dropped the price zestimate on my house by $100,000 in the last 7 months. So it is now only two grand over what I paid for it, 10 years ago... Even though my neighborhood has exploded the last few years, new development all around me, literally. You can't even get a "lot" in my neighborhood, for more than 60grand of their zestimate. And my next door neighbors house, who has exactly the same house, is listed as having 2 more bedrooms and 2.5 more bathrooms? I had contacted them about multiple listings of my property and to remove interior photos from 4yrs ago. They sent me some bs form letter about their algorithms. The worst!