Are housing prices dropping as fast as Zillow says? (Chicago: sales, real estate)

[ccjarider]

Hello,
We sold our home in Arlington Heights 5 months ago to move to Portland OR for my work. We owned it for 4 years and lost about 20% during that time. A bummer true - but manageable.

I see on Zillow that home has allegedly lost another $40K (16%) since we sold in July. Yikes!!

If that is true, then sure glad we left when we did.

Curious as to what people think about Zillow values.

[thePR]

Zillow is kind of a joke.

[MannheimMadman]

I agree that it can be hit or miss, and does not take into account some subtle characteristics.

However, I will say that on both my mom's and grandma's houses, the zestimates are pretty accurate. I think it's because they both live in pretty homogeneous suburbs.

Also, I think it'd be crapshoot with Chicago and its neighborhoods. There is way too much variation going on from block to block and a lot of other variables going in. I'd say its a fun little thing but should not be taken more than 40% seriously.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

Hello,
We sold our home in Arlington Heights 5 months ago to move to Portland OR for my work. We owned it for 4 years and lost about 20% during that time. A bummer true - but manageable.

I see on Zillow that home has allegedly lost another $40K (16%) since we sold in July. Yikes!!

If that is true, then sure glad we left when we did.

Curious as to what people think about Zillow values.

Zillow is worthless for value determination.

[ccjarider]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Zillow is worthless for value determination.

why?

[linicx]

I don't know anything about Zillow. What I have been hearing on the tv from people who are supposed to know the market is this: The housing market has not bottomed out yet and they don't expect it for two or more years. I've read in various articles that when it is finally over there will be 40M houses in foreclosure. Some areas of the country are harder hit than others and will take longer to recover. What I think is we are in the second dip the experts predicted. It is scary time for a lot of people.

The question is probably whether or not is smart to rent for another year and wait to see what happens. Even when the market starts to rebound you will not see pre-2006 prices for a long time to come.

[MannheimMadman]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

why?

From Zillow's own forum:

26% of the time, they are within 5% of an actual sales price, 46% of the time, they are within 10% of an actual sales price, while 70% of the time they are within 20% of a sales price (with a median error of 11.1%).

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain

[radiojunkie2006]

I've noticed that during the late Fall thru early Spring the Zillow prices are always on the low side. It's probably because no one is seriously looking at real estate during this period.

[Diws]

For one thing, Zillow does not take into account repair / remodeling, unless the owner self-reports it.

[Chris_H_2]

Zillow has my home increasing $34,000 in value over the 6 months after we bought it last January, and then losing almost $60,000 in teh past 2 months (after topping out in October). I don't put much stock in those figures.