A Shot in the Dark

Do you feel lucky?

Many of you are familiar with Zillow.com, its an internet site created to sell advertising that offers you a free home valuation that it calls a "Zestimate". Not an appraisal or a CMA its a "Zestimate" of value.

Now how they do it, I don't know, but I do like checking their site with every appraisal to see how good they are. Sometimes they are very good, sometimes somewhere close and sometimes very very bad.

Case in point, I checked their site for the two appraisals I completed this week. The first one was a 56 year old single family two story in Western Springs, the appraised value was $525,000.00, the "Zestimate" $811,182.00. The second home was an 18 year old two story in Bartlett. The appraised value was $400,000.00, the "Zestimate" was $263,970.00.

When you need information on the value of your home websites like this are interesting, but that's as far as it goes. To determine a real market value you need a complete appraisal, the type that a certified professional inspects your property, researches the market and completes an appraisal report. For a typical home it costs $275.00, remember you get what you pay for.