Zillow works best in large neighborhoods where a lot of houses are “cookie-cutter” and very similar.
In older or more rural neighborhoods with wide variations between houses the margin of error can get very high—particularly if public records are either inaccurate or not up to date.
“In older or more rural neighborhoods with wide variations between houses the margin of error can get very high—particularly if public records are either inaccurate or not up to date.”
That’s a great point. In my city, San Franciso, you can seen brand-new high-end condo construction on the same block as some 150-year-old house that has had “deferred maintenance” for its last 140 years. Those situations confound the algorithms.
In my neighborhood home prices on Zillow are way way way below selling prices. And for some reason the numbers on Redfin are higher.