Unzillowable, adjective (un zil’ o abull): 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.
Technorati Tags: Zillow, unzillowable, valuation, appraisal, AVM, accuracy, error, home, condo, residential , real estate, technology, sellsius
Great Post!
I agree with your “Unzillowable” list. All of those can influence our lives in a positive or negative way and we should try to think twice when we want to buy a house.
Real estate is like people—yes we all have the same body parts but not everyone looks the same.
“unzillowable”?
How about uncommisionable?
The reason for the brugh ha ha over zillow? The RE industry is not getting a commission from it. No, zillow doesn’t have “secret shoppers” out collecting carpet and air quality samples. Anyone who thinks they do/should simply does not have a firm grasp on the internet nor the potential data spigot that has been opened.
Zillow is one of many tools. Just as:
http://www.mris.com/reports/stats/
http://tinyurl.com/kk8gj (mapable tax records)
http://tinyurl.com/ohrlq (Washington Post link)
http://www.mdlandrec.net (Must have a password, but registration is free)
Are tools.
It’s almost to the point where the only thing one would need a realtor for, is to open the lock box.
The last vestiges of a realtor? How about a new poll? If you’re a buyer would you rather use a realtor and pay the commission based on the sales price of a house, OR
For a small fee, full (read only) access to the MLS?
Like any tool, some serve the purpose better than others. I’ve opened a bottle with a screwdriver but a bottle opener works better. But I agree with you in the sense that if that bottle opener cost me $1,000 I’d probably go with the screwdriver (unless that screwdriver cost me $1,000 in broken bottles). It comes down to having choices and weighing the pros and cons of each choice on a given set of circumstances.
3 points re data usefulness:
1. Data is good provided it’s fresh, accurate & complete. If it meets this test, it is clearly useful as a starting point but I would argue that a professional needs to examine the data to know this. Example: if a comp says it’s 2 bed 2 bath–how do you know that’s accurate or complete?. A local agent may know of that sale and point out that it was actually 2 bed 2.5 bath and one of the baths was a jacuzzi. Here is where I see the need for an experienced local agent.
2. An AVM margin of error is only known AFTER the sale is made. To rely on a tool who’s accuracy is determined post facto assumes a risk. An average or median % error rate is simply that– an average or in the middle value, with many errors being above or below, some grossly so. A professional may cut your odds of being one of the gross errors had you relied on the raw data alone, as in example in 1.
3. Data coupled with experienced sensory evaluation is better than data alone because data alone does NOT factor in unzillowables, even MLS data. Some things just can’t be number crunched.
Ultimately, for your particular real estate need, the zestimate may not be the bestimate.
Thank you for your comment SoMdrenter.
BTW, are you near Ocean City?
-jf
Love how you coin a phrase, Sellz! Zillow is pretty much like FICO, it’s all about algorithyming past events and behaviors. Zillow won’t tell you how many buyers are qualified in a specific price range and neighborhood; and remember, it’s buyers who determine value and what they will pay.
I would call unzillowable an adjective, not a noun.
Great post…. I can’t believe I never commented on it before…. Hard to believe I did not comment on it back then. Or maybe I did and said something inane. Or redundant like “great post.” The word is in my vocabulary. I came searching for this very post.
Thanks Maureen. We know you have helped spread “unzillowable” to the masses and we thank you for it.
But I could have said something nice about it here before Februray.. I thought I had coined a term today I Googled it and it’s on Google a mere 43,000 times. oh well.. I can say I know someone who coined a term.
I think it’s brilliant. It’s documented, linked back to…and it continues to be an effective word.
And Jay Thompson in Arizona actually used it in a listing. That’s better than being googleable.
I also agree with that words can called unzillowable