Plain and Simple Zillow has been striving vainly since day one one to be the annoited the authority on homevaluations.

It must irk them that Yahoo put Reply (who?)and eppraisals side by side next to them in their Homevaluation center.

Running public data through a algorithm and spitting out valuations is nothing unique. HomeGain did it back in the last century.

Cyberhomes does it, abc real estate does it, eppraisals does it, reply does it and HomeGain is doing it again.

Did Zillow really think that just coming out and claiming that that they are the authority (Kelly’s blue book of home valuations, blah blah blah) and adding a Z to everything they Zay would make it Zo?

I submit the cooperation of agents and homeowners/sellers is necessary for a useful end user experience. The zestimate-only site was a one visit, see you later, user experience. A curiosity. It was not until agents & homeowners got involved with correcting data, adding for sale listings, Q&A, and ads, did the user experience improve (I’m guessing).

If homesellers/agents decide they want the right to object to inaccurate zestimates and have them removed because they interfere with the ability to market and sell a home, and Zillow refuses (as they have to date), those homeowners & agents may in turn abandon zillow, leaving the end users in the lurch.

It is this consumer experience that has me concerned for Zillow’s future.

Recently, I had an encounter with a rather irrate and frustrated buyer who found me through one of my Zillow EZ-ads. Let’s call him consumer Z allow me recount his story:

Consumer Z had heard about all the Zillow hype and, like so many others, decided to check it out for himself. The reader should know, as I realized during the course of our conversation, that consumer Z was seasoned real estate investor who had purchased many a property of the years. He went on Zillow looking for investment opportunities in Boston for Multi-Family dwellings. After searching around for a bit he came across what was reported to be a multi-family home with not one, but three different prices associated with it, that were:

The listed price
The Zestimate
The owner’s adjusted estimate

At first, he told me that he was little confused at the three differing prices being presented for this one property, but being the veteran in the practice of buying and selling real estate he persisited–determined to figure it out for himself. After some time he ended up calling me for some clarification after seeing my EZ ad banner proudly waving at him. So, I went ahead and took a look for myself to see if I could help him out. What I saw confused me as well. What we both saw was the following:

A list price that seemed very low
An owner’s estimate that was also very low
A Zestimate that was significantly higher that even the owner’s estimate.

It took me a little time and a little research to figure this out. Eventually I was able to determine that this property was no longer a mulit-family but rather it had been converted to three condomiiums about a year ealier–and been sold as such a while back. Apprarently, the public records that Zillow pulls were not nearly current enough, which would explain why there was such a difference between zestimates, owner’s estimates and listing prices. What was listed for sale was a condo, but what was being displayed was a multi-family.

My point here is not to attack Zillow for its’ innacurracies–not at all. My point, as I stated at the outset, was what Zillow should be on guard against and protesct at all costs–that is the end-user expereince. The last thing this random, but seasoned, consumer said to me was that he would never visit Zillow again. I thought this was kind of harsh–but apparently this was one comsumer who had what to him was a very frustrating experience–and I understood that completely. So, as I said earlier, estimates are just that–estimates. And it does not matter if the real estate industry has a problem with them, or other industry insiders. What matters is the experience. If you want to build a community around ephemeral data the only thing htat matters is a positve conusmer experience–and then maybe they’ll come back, and talk.

just checked my account. They gave me $20 per ad extra…I’ve given them over $1000 in ads….hmmm.

No, if it was inaccurate. It is, in fact, a public service to the world to get rid of inaccurate valuation of homes. Think of the ripple effect of misinformation—Zillow uses zestimates to create Housing Trends Reports. How could anyone support having inaccurate zestimates in Housing Reports? Transparency is not a license to disseminate inaccurate information, is it?

This seems like a no-brainer to us. We don’t see “transparency” as applying to inaccurate zestimates. An opt-out right gives control to the homeowner to protect the world from misleading valuation attached to their asset. Do you support an opt-out right for homeowners/sellers, Jonathan? Support the opt-out —For the good of the world, man!

In the end, to their credit, Zillow did not deny transparency—they allowed the “inaccurate zestimate” ad (the unzillowable ad was seen as a trademark issue & that’s a justifiable exclusion. Ultimately it is an unresolved legal TM issue, which I believe zillow would lose. But until a court decides it, it is their right to take the position it is a violation of their TM).

Bottom line: If a zestimate (a AVM creation) is inaccurate and attached to my home, I as the homeowner do not like it or want it attached to my home—would you?

Consider this analogy: I stand in the public sidewalk in front of your “for sale” sign holding my Z sign saying the value of your home is really $50,000 (or whatever number would offend you) less than what you list it for. Who is this helping, hurting? I as the homeowner would object. Would you? If you agree that an owner should be allowed to object, you should agree with the opt-out right. Right?

Or is that okay because they never signed up to be transparent in the first place. Seems a little flimsy.

I also think the word “transparency” is being beaten into the ground and soon will have little to no meaning.

And, Michael, sorry … it hasn’t shown up on the Google search yet, right?

So, do you think it was a bad move for Zillow to remove the ban from Carole’s “Inaccurate zestimate” ad?