Sellsius real estate marketing blog

I coined the term unzillowable in this post on August 13, 2006 and described it the next day in this post. The first real estate listing to use the word was by Jay Thompson in Arizona.

Unzillowable, adjective (un zil’ o bull): unable to be valued by the popular website zillow.com.

“This state-of-the-art mansion in Texas, designed by Eero Saarinen & once owned by George W. Bush, is unzillowable”; noun: something which cannot be valued in a Zestimate. “Privacy is an unzillowable.”

A home or any type of Real Estate is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

We have followed the Zillow talk since before its launch. In fact, we briefly spoke with Rich Barton at Inman’s NYC Connect Conference back in January. He revealed to us that Zillow would only focus on residential sales, not rentals.

Zillow appeals to the consumer’s desire to get value instantly, even a “ballpark” figure. Like Property Shark before it, Zillow taps into the public databases to provide past sales data. If it stopped at that, it might have less backlash from brokers, agents and appraisers. But it takes it a step further and through some unknown number crunching produces a “Zestimate”. Granted, it is only an estimate. Fine. But the zestimate is subject to gross inaccuracy. It is free, but you can’t take it to the bank to get a loan.

We believe the reason a zestimate is subject to inaccuracy, sometimes major, are those unique characteristics of a home & certain environmental or other factors that set one house apart from its neighbor. This may also be a reason why it is free.

You can call these:

• Intangibles
• Emotional factors
• Curb appeal
• Inside information
• Unique features

These are things that lead one person to pay a different price for one house than the one right next door. We choose to call these “unzillowable” features or just “unzillowables”. Zillow is conscious of the unzillowables and is working to incorporate them to improve the site. We support consumer access to information if it helps sell real estate but we also believe users should be fully informed of the limitations of any valuation technology in measuring a home’s personality.

Here is our list of unzillowables.

• Traffic noise
• Privacy
• Neighbors - Best or Worst? - Do they party a lot? Are they loud or obnoxious? Are they kind, quiet and considerate?
• Neighbor’s property - Do they have junk everywhere? Do they never maintain their landscaping, property or their house? Are they meticulous?
• Neighbor’s pets - Barking dogs? Exotic animals?
• Unique Day & Night Features - Street lights & signs shining through the bedroom windows at night. Daytime construction.
• Water Issues - Basement floods only when it’s a real heavy rain.
• Cul de sac - Positive & negative features. More privacy but lacks alternative emergency access routes. Dead end street.
• Stigmatized home
• Exposure
• Views
• Offbeat homes
• Wallpaper
• Paint color
• Land Pitch - Bad slope where you have to cut alot of grass. Water Drainage.
• Smell - Good & Bad. Pet smells. Orange grove. Farm & Crops.
• “est” Homes - The nicest/ugliest home in the neighborhood.
• Homes in non-disclosure states
• Future events - [Building, Community, Neighborhood, Town, City, State] New laws, zoning changes, re-routed roadways, long term construction (see Second Avenue Subway construction project in NYC)

Updates:
• Bugs - mosquitoes, mice, rats, ants, termites, pigeons, etc…
• Micro Climate– leeward, windward, etc
Room flow
Decorating scheme
Landscaping
Local market condition–buyers’/ sellers’, mortgage rates
Current market pool–priced inventory a home is competing against
Provenance—historical, architectural, celebrity.
Sex Offender Proximity
Smokers in units sharing common walls (via Teresa Boardman)

What would you call unzillowable?

Related Post (the gold is in the comments): Mining the Elusive Unzillowable.

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