Sellsius real estate marketing blog

Wow! I am wondering if I should add the missing 1000 square feet to my home. Last time I checked size had no impact on the value. I also noticed that the comps are in a different town. I am facing a steep tax increase this year based on the value of my home. I am thinking about sending zillows zestimate to the county so that I can get a steep tax cut. :)

Wow, that's an interesting point. Best not to increase your own zestimate until you need to sell. hmmm?

To concisely answer the title of this post, "NO".

Actually, you were about 6 months behind the visitors to our website - who we do listen to - and who on launch day (2/8/06) and ever since then have requested the features that we launched yesterday -- as you should note if you review Lloyd's post from (2/9/06): http://tinyurl.com/hyksr.

Z2 was in the works before Z1 launched, though feedback did help us prioritize it aganist all the other stuff we're busy with. If future features we develop seem obvious, that's exactly the way it should be. Let me know when you find otherwise.

Thanks for the laughs, and the links and the ink.

David G

We realize Zillow was receiving these complaints from day 1. What we didn't know was that anything was going to be done about it. All statements were in defense of the original model. If it's not broken, why fix it? is the sense we got.

When Steve Olshins wrote about the incorrect data, the response to him was we'll check it out. Nowhere on the blog did I see a statement---just hang in there Steve we're working on something so you can correct the errors yourself.

We took your quote, as you can see in the post, which said "we don't let people tell us what their zestimate should be". Keeping the zestimate as is was "critical to the integrity". Now when we see 2 estimates, who's should be have confidence in?

Don't get me wrong. What Zillow is doing is trying to deal with a big problem which we mentioned as Assumption 2: to be valuable facts must be fresh, accurate & complete & this requires human double checking. An assumption you answered (re the public data)as follows:

"Assumption #2 is generally incorrect but can be correct in some edge cases — remember that the public record is actually being double-checked by many human beings....there’s not much room for an error to make it the whole way through that system."

So I hope you can understand how we didn't see it coming & therefore brought these issues out in our blog & dialogue with you in prior posts.

David, I appreciate you're a good sport about things. I also appreciate that you'd understand that our strong feelings come from working in the real estate industry (myself over 25 years) We're happy to give you the laughs, links, & ink..But you guys seems to be Ok without us little guys.

One last question: When can owners put a "for sale" sign on the listing?


Best regards,
Joseph