Are Asheville Zillow estimates accurate?

The majority of home buyers begin searching for a home online, and most will find themselves on Zillow at one point or another.  The popular website offers listings and estimates for a wide variety of homes in many areas, but it can sometimes be difficult to know whether they information provided is accurate.  To help you separate out the good information from the dubious, we’ll take a look at Asheville Zillow’s Zestimates in this episode of Whiteboard Wednesdays, and help you understand whether the Asheville Zillow estimates are accurate!

First, it’s important to understand how Zillow calculates its estimates and where it gets it numbers from.  There are three primary factors that Zillow uses to create an estimate for a home’s value:

1. Tax assessment: This information is drawn from public records and is generally fairly accurate, though it may not be 100% up to date if, for example, an addition, pool, or other upgrade has been made to the property since its last valuation.
2. Mortgage records: Like the tax assessment, this information comes from public records and should be fairly accurate.
3. User-submitted data: Unlike the first two factors, this is a highly subjective and therefore often less accurate element to Zillow’s estimates.  Users submit certain information to Zillow, which it then applies to its algorithms in order to compute an estimate of the home’s value.  This information might include:
   1. Bed/bath counts
   2. Square footage
   3. Additions, pools, porches, upgrades

While the third element of Zillow’s calculations can throw an element of uncertainty into their Zestimates, the company does have a very clear definition of what the value of a house is, which accounts for any variation: “Value is what someone is willing to pay.”

With this in mind, remember that the Zestimate is just the starting point for a conversation – nothing more and nothing less.  It doesn’t necessarily dictate what a seller is willing to accept, or what a buyer is willing to pay. Understanding what goes into the Zestimate is a good place to start, but it’s always a good idea to gather as much information from as many sources as possible in order to ensure that you thoroughly understand every aspect of the home’s valuation.

To find out more about how homes are valued, contact Asheville Cash Buyers today at AshevilleCashBuyers.com or 828-222-6443!