Tom S.

Zillow,
Your position seems to be designed to be legally safe, for now, but the reality is your Zestimate is a powerful number that everyone else has to work to overcome. If you undervalue a property you cost people real money, and you give no recourse. This is a very unfair business practice.

Tom

On Sep 12,2018, at 8:49 AM, Chris S. (Zillow) <*******@zillow.com> wrote:

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Your request (*******) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.

Chris S.
Chris S. (Zillow Help Center)
Sep 12,8:49 AM PDT

Hi again,

Thank you for the follow-up.

For the first and second question, we are trying to let you know that our Zestimate is not actually a value that is pertaining to or for comparative market analysis. This is just an estimate that is being calculated based on the data, sales records, tax information and the home facts (Bedrooms, baths, square footage); a starting point value of the home. The Zestimate algorithm models are constantly updating to provide the very best starting value of a home given the data that we have available. This is the reason why we do not use or accept appraisals for the homes, on Zillow, because it's important that the Zestimate algorithm be consistently applied to all properties in a similar manner by using the same data points for every property. An appraiser physically inspects the property and takes special features, location, and market conditions into account. We do not factor these details into our Zestimate.

The current Zestimate is $140,368, the last time I have checked the property page, the Zestimate was $139,460. This is the calculation based on the data we have from the property page. You may look at Zestimate history & details to know how it was calculated.

For the third question, since thousands of data points go into the Zestimate calculation, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific reason for the difference in Zestimate between your home and your neighbor's home.

To name a few possible reasons:
-Quality of the homes (materials, upgrades)
-Floor plan/structural layout might be correlated with the values
-Past transaction history
-Tax assessments

You may check them on the home page you are referring as the identical unit of your home, so you would have the chance to compare and know the difference in the home facts.

For the fourth question, what you see is the Private Zestimate. This can only be seen by the home owner and you have that because you have the chance to edit your comps. But it will not be publicized because the comps that appear on our property pages are computer generated.

Lastly, be noted that Zestimate cannot be manually edited or removed from the home page. The only thing that will change it is by updating the home facts or any incorrect data that you see on the home page. Again, we don't mean this estimation to be an official appraisal.

Thank you for understanding this matter.
Thank you for using Zillow.

Chris S.
Consumer Care Advocate
https://zillow.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

App User
App User
Sep 11,5:24 PM PDT

This is a follow-up to your previous request #******* "Zestimate inquiry"

Hi Chris,

I understand most of your note but where I'm still confused is the following:

1) The local realtor says my property is about $180K
2) Zestimate says $140K
3) The identical unit next door to mine has a Zestimate of $148K
3) If I use the Zillow "View my Comps", it gives $241K
4) In the 2 years before you changed your algorithm my property Zestimate went from $146K to $176K, and then in one month, the month your new algorithm started, it dropped to $121K, a drop of $55K or 31%!
7/6/16 146,500
12/24/16 165,017
2/15/17 167,913
4/10/17 175,520
8/1/17 121,055

As so many people make use of Zillow when hunting for a home, it is really not right to present my home as $140K when it is likely between $175K and $200K.

Can you do anything to correct the public online Zestimate for my property.

Thanks,
Tom

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