Market asking price vs Zillow.com value estimate

Realtor fees do not count into FMV ie you cannot mark a property up just because you sell with a realtor as opposed to selling it yourself.

Hard to say what is going on here without looking at the actual sales. Zillow's ZEstimate is just that- an estimate. I have seen them be pretty close and way off. I only use it as an initial ballpark figure before I drill down into the actual sales.

Still, that 10% diff between zillow and appraisal.come kind of worries me ie there are NO good comps? Nothing is selling? Something is different about this house?

And just based on this, it looks like the asking price is pie in the sky.

Most of what I have looked at on zillow has been a little higher then actual value. I would ask the realtor where they are getting that price from and ask for comps. that justify that price.

I guess that gives me food for thought and I will look into it further.
Regards

What do you do if there just AREN'T any comps? And if I'm able to get a few in the same city, can I just re-use them within a certain time period for any house that is similar, adjusting for differences?

you prob already know this...

Find a house "of like" in any neighborhood in a 5 mile radius. There has to be one that sold recently. Look at the sq. footage and divide the sold price with sq ft.

then take that number and times it by the sq ft of the house your looking at.

This will give you a ball park.

OK, D. Help me on this. When I put an address into Zillow.com should comparables show up for the same town? I get a list of them for the next state over, but for our town (which is less than 5 miles in diameter) there is LITERALLY nothing. It says n/a for comparables. I've tried typing in about 5 different addresses. Same thing every time. What am I missing? Where else can I look? Like I've said before, I've always bought by my gut feeling. I'm sure my mind is processing info from somewhere. But I REALLY want to start doing this the "right" way.

Also, it doesn't make sense that there wouldn't be any. From basically any corner you stand on in this town, you can see houses for sale. I know realtors, though, that normally sell dozens (or more) of houses in our area per year, that have only sold 1 or 2 in the last 6 months.

Rina

Rina,

Zillow has some problems like this. About 1 block over from my house, there are some 3 bedrooms (typical house is a 4). I tried to pull comps and it said NONE.

This appears to be some kind of a tax assessor problem since another online program I also use said the same thing.

What I did was find a 3 bedroom in my exact neighborhood (so a block or so away from the subject property). This home DID have comps so I used those. Not perfect but better than nothing.

call any realtor and ask them to run comps on the address you are looking at.

if they ask you any questions...just tell them what they want to hear...

So if sites like Zillow and such cannot help us with comps then is there a better and surer way to find comps for a particular area?

its their job to know this stuff...let them do the work for you

Do what D said and call a realtor. Zillow is ok for some properties not so good for others.

I have to ask my realtor again. I told her about the assignment to find 10 comps. She laughed and said "Good luck". I have an appraiser friend. I'll ask her, too. She did an appraisal for us on our duplex in January?, and there was only 1 comp. The bank at first insisted on more but then they accepted it because there just weren't any others.
Thanks, you guys. I'm going to call the coaching staff today and see if they can help me locate specific comps in my area.

Rina

Yesterday I made contact with a realtor in my area. I need to know some things when dealing with these people.
I made contact via email. This RE agent had sold us our home some years ago.

1. What do you tell them about why you want this information?

I simply asked her what her take was on the current RE market and her forecast for the future.
I felt that she had the 'impression' I was in the market to purchase so her view on the market may have been tainted in that direction.

1. Do you tell them you are a student of Dean's?
2. If you do, do they take this seriously or is it like "oh, another would be if they could be"! attitude?
3. What is the best and most effective approach????

Thanks again

Let the Realtor know what you are doing. If you do not let them know what you are doing how are they suppose help you?

If you find a good Realtor this should not be a problem. To find a good Realtor I ask three questions:

- Have they invested in real estate themselves?
- Have they worked with investors before?
- Will they allow me to make 10-15 offers a week at 70% of value with contingencies.

I agree. Just be honest with them. And if you want to say you are Dean's student go ahead. Just treat them like normal people (they are, you know) and find one that's excited about helping you.

Update on the comps.
I called the coaching staff. Jessica said they can't help with specifics, but she gave me these 5 sites to use. I think someone has mentioned them in here before.

www.homegain.com
www.housevalues.com
www.blueroof.com
www.zillow.com
www.electronicappraiser.com (which has a minimal cost per search)

I'll go ahead and try.

Rina

If these RE agents are not 'Real Estate Millionaires', will they feel threatened that you are trying to get there using a different method?

I know that sounds like a stupid question; it just seems to me that they would all be millionaires with their knowledge and we would seem like imbeciles to them.

Do you know what I mean? Something seems odd to me about approaching them in a seemingly challenging endeavor.

info D, thanks for the tip. SULLY.

i knew most of the web sites, but their was 2 i never knew existed, thanks, SULLY.

Glad to pass along the info.