Realtormarney.com is Baltimore’s Best Real Estate Blog on Zillow

Realtormarney.com was voted by readers as Baltimore’s Best Real Estate Blog on Zillow!

Though I have my issues with Zillow and the very incorrect Towson Zillow Zestimates, it is still an honor to be nominated for best Baltimore real estate blog, and even more so to have the voters choose my blog to win!

The race was very tight between myself and Jamie Smith-Hopkins from the Baltimore Sun. To have it be a close one between a full time professional writer and myself made it even more exciting to me!

The night before the final votes, I had been down a lot, and thought the contest was over. I used Twitter and Facebook to put a call out for help — and my online friends and “fans” came through to help me win with 46% of the votes!

It shows how powerful these social media sites are, and what connections you can make and relationships you can build.

I want to thank each of you who voted and got the word out to vote for me, and the amazing amount of support I received. I am overwhelmed and grateful.

THANK YOU!

Don’t forget to contact me for your Baltimore real estate needs. I am here & ready to serve!

Baltimore Zillow Best Blog Nomination

Zillow has named its’ top 10 real estate blogs in Baltimore based on traffic, and realtormarney.com is one of them!

I am proud to have been nominated, and the hard work I put into my Towson real estate blog is being noticed.

You can vote every day until August 11, 2010 at midnight, so please stop by daily (click the photo to take you to the poll) and vote for me!

Either way, don’t worry, I will continue to provide in depth Towson real estate information, as well as activities and homes for sale in Hunt Valley and surrounding areas!

I appreciate the nomination, despite my issues with Towson Zestimates and their inaccuracies. The site has many great tools, but close valuations in our area is not one of them.

Thank you for your continued support and readership. If you have any Baltimore real estate topics you would like to see me cover, please contact me!

Incorrect Towson Zillow Zestimates Strike Again

Memorial Day brings families together, and discussions many times go to real estate, especially when you have a member of your family who specializes in that field.

I like to know my Towson real estate marketplace so when I am asked how much a home is that someone passed on the way to my house, I know the answer.

One family member who lives not too far away, said he went on Zillow to find out how much his home is worth. He is not selling anytime soon, and didn’t want to “bother me”, but couldn’t believe that his home was worth over $210,000 less than he bought it for just 2 1/2 years ago.

Now, a neighbor’s house is on the market for $624,900. This area is very diverse, much like Towson, so the neighbor’s house is much smaller, with significantly lesser acreage. It’s Zestimate? $440,500. $184,400 difference (30%!).

This brought me to show them my past posts about Misleading Towson Zillow Zestimates and the one about how my past client’s HELOC was reduced based on the very incorrect Zillow Zestimate on his home.

Pulling two homes that are on the market near my Towson home (that he passed, and yes, had asked me about), I found one listed for $2,495,000. Zestimate? $971,000. Over $1.5 MILLION difference (39%!) The smaller one down the street from there? On the market for $615,000, Zestimate $489,000. (20% difference).

I wrote about it on a Realtor website called ActiveRain to find out if others are having similar issues. I also sent the information to my two contacts at Zillow. Responses have been that the site is very off in areas across the country. The one contact at Zillow, David Gibbons, stated in an email to me:

“It appears as though the Zestimate values for unique homes in this area that have not recently sold (like this one) seem to be driven largely off the tax values. For some reason, this homeowner pays incredibly low taxes (half that for homes selling at $2M.) I’m pretty certain that that is why our estimate is indeed off…”

Again, this emphasizes that real estate truly is LOCAL. However, if a site is designed to helps consumers determine values, shouldn’t those values be SOMEWHAT accurate?

If you would like an accurate Towson home value estimate, please contact me. I can help you anywhere in the Baltimore real estate market area, or can refer you to an agent anywhere across the country.

Misleading Towson Zillow Zestimates Explained Further

As I wrote March 2, Towson Zillow Zestimates in general, are statistically off by a large amount.

Last week I had a client call me because his HELOC was reduced by a large amount right in the middle of construction to improve his home. He could not understand how the bank could make the determination that his Towson house value had dropped over $200,000 in the past 18 months since he opened his HELOC.

Upon speaking to the bank, the representative pulls up Zillow, and proceeds to tell him this is how they discovered the value change.

“Is this true? Has my value really dropped by THIS much? I knew we were in a depressed market, but did not think it was THIS bad,” he asked me.

Based on a true market analysis, his value has really only dropped by $25-50,000. So how is Zillow off this much?

Enter the powers of social media!

I was able to find both the COO & the Director of Community Relations for Zillow on Twitter.

I contacted COO Spencer Rascoff and he tweeted back:

“Lenders shouldn’t rely on Zestimates. Use an appraisal.” “We have “a Zestimate is not an appraisal” language all over the site. http://twurl.nl/7lj6mc “

He then emailed me directly because he wanted to get to the bottom as to why they are so far off.

Director of Community Relations David Gibbons tweeted:

“…it may not change outcome by he {sic} can’t reduce heloc based on Zestimate alone.” “Lenders are supposed to use commercially licensed AVMs & appraisals, not Zestimates!”

While they are both correct, and I agree with them wholeheartedly, lenders ARE using their site, and if the site’s purpose is to provide real estate information, then the site should be more accurate.

Through emails and more discussion, I was able to find out more about how the Zestimate values are determined.

David direct messaged me that it: “looks like your purchase price and taxes have the biggest impact on your Zestimate…”

I asked what that had to do with a current value of a home, because there is no correlation whatsoever in the real estate market from what you paid for it and what it is worth now.

His answer: “homes only sell on average once every seven years so when figuring out what a home is worth its last price is important – though 2002 is…we count past sales in less and less over time … a sale last year would have much greater impact.”

NO WONDER the values are off so dramatically. And if Zestimates continue to be calculated in this respect, then we should be looking for values to be tremendously off in 2013-2014 in the other direction. So my client can be assured that in 3 years his Zestimate should be approximately $200,000 OVER true value!

Please be aware that the Zillow Zestimates, at least in the Towson market area, may have no relationship to the true value of any home.

This reiterates the point that REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL and, as COO Rascoff wrote: “a Zestimate is not a replacement for a real estate agent. Far from it.” For your free Towson Home Price Estimate, contact me today!