Zillow vs Eappraisal vs Cyberhomes Estimates

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Bearman81_IHB

New member
Hello All,



I am new member to the IHB. Great site with a ton of helpful info and members. Just started to look around for a 4 bedroom detached home in Irvine. Its harder to find the right floor plan than I thought. And when we do find a great floor plan (Columbus Grove), its not in the area we really prefer. But we have only started to look and I think the prices in Irvine may still go down atleast 5% or so in the next year so we arent in any rush.



My question is how accurate are the Zillow vs Eappraisal vs Cyberhomes estimate on Redfin? They seem very contradictory sometimes which may be the result of the way each calculates home values (not to mention how up to date each one's data may be). Does anyone have any detailed insights on how each does its calculations. And generally, is there one that is a bit more reliable than the other?



Thanks for any input and feedback!
 
Bearman,

Welcome to IHB. In my humble opinion Zillow is stuck in a time warp. I can only say that for the properties I have seen and that I'm interested in. I will be buying a home in Irvine eitherlate this year or early next year. My price range is 1M to 1.15M. The places that I've seen listed in Irvine for 1.1m to 1.5M are all 200-600K cheaper than what zillow shows they are worth. And this is just off the listing price. I don't know how zillow comes up with their numbers. Maybe the NAR runs it?? (That was a joke). Cyberhomes I find is closer to the real number of current market value for a house. Again maybe homes in the 300K-800K price range are fairly valued on Zillow. I don't know I can only comment on the 1M+ properties. Good Luck Buddy.
 
In my opinion, Zillow's algorithm is horrible. I think a grad student in CS would be able to come up with something better. But large AI algorithms are still things I have nightmares about, so the complexity is a factor in developing one...



Anyways, if you'd like to 'nerd it up', here's a Wired article from last year:







To quote:



"Wired: Not everyone has been thrilled with their Zestimate. Tell us how it's done.



Barton: Our algorithm is a complex piece of AI that pores through a ton of data, looks for patterns, and creates predictive models. Then it goes through by zip code and identifies which models work best in each neighborhood. We're going to take that all the way down to the house level eventually. It's an interesting computer science and stats problem. A fun one.



Wired: Why wait until now to upgrade your algorithm?



Barton: <b>Zestimates are based on history; we plot house prices like stock prices.</b> We are careful about major updates to the algorithm because we are literally rewriting history."



<a href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-12/ff_zillow">Zillow Wired Magazine Article</a>
 
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