Obeoman,

Just get a new crystal ball.  They sell them at the pro shop.

Unzillowables are intangibles which affect value—the smell from the nearby pig farm, traffic noise from the construction truck route beside the house (the ones that run early in the morning), the next door neighbor with the junk yard dogs, or the elaborate landscaping, distinct views etc.— Zillow does not factor these into its zestimates. Provenance is also an unzillowable. If you believe the experts on Antiques Roadshow, value is enhanced by provenance. In fact, I met with the CEO of PREI, the PA redeveloper who bought the property from Lucent, who told me the decision to keep the main building designed by Saarinen was based on the added value of this provenance.

Perhaps a more erudite way of explaining an unzillowable:

The challenge with relying on computers to establish value is the difference between stagnant data that exists in a database and knowledge that relies on human experience and complex thought processes. In the book “Social Life of Information,” John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid make exactly this point. A computer relies on information. When it comes to real estate, this means the property’s features, including bedroom-bath count, lot size and floor plan. Even when two properties have identical floor plans, one may sell for more because of the beautiful landscaping, the privacy, or some other factor the computer cannot access. The value of these features is often more intuitive rather than quantitative. As such, computers may estimate values, but the estimates will continue to be flawed because there is no scientific way to value these other factors. (Jonathan Miller, appraiser)

Anyway, I can’t find the box on Zillow where I add “provenance”. Someone said it was near the box where I insert my “view of the city dump”. Dang, how do those zillowists know how to value a view?

Luckily, you can leave out beds, baths, square feet, total rooms and still get zillowed:
http://tinyurl.com/nv243

…William Gibson said the future arrives unevenly…Linda Ellerbee said, “and so it goes…”

Redmond has obviously been playing with the future-our future-long before we saw this vlog piece. The guy running Perceptive Pixel was obviously ahead of them in this roughly paralell universe.
While all of this has been going on-where have We been? Waiting - the single most monastic task in a compressed generation. We all wait alone; plugged into where everyone else is-or so we think.

There are more people doing Something Else in our Here than we realize.

A short answer for Realtor apps - virtual tours, sticky-still photos, anyway, fit this to the smack. Imagine a virtual tour holodeck style - Duh. Wear it. Open the cupboard doors or stroll onto the deck overlooking the waterfont. Check out the schools. Scratch and sniff.

The balance - well, where is the fulcrum?

I gotta go.

Obeoman

“Unzillowable provenance”… have you lost your mind?

I CAN ZILLOW ANYTHING! Um, can’t I?