
Quote from optioncoach:
Also I think many of you are missing hte point that it is based on tax assessed value which has nothing to do in many cases with actual market value. Also it is 2005 tax assessed value which in many places is done at the beginning of the year. So the values are about a year old in many cases until they are updated.
Quote from Arnie:
Not exactly. Although they may take assessed values into consideration, the value is based on recent sales. My house appraised for $290,000 back in August 2005. As of yesterday, www.zillow says my house is now worth $292,500. I checked some other addresses and they were pretty close to actual value. Google "auomated valuation model" for more info.
Quote from winter:
In case people havent noticed different areas have different levels of coverage. Its explained here:
http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracy.z
Obviously if they are using nearly-useless tax assessment data only then its not going to be that helpful however in areas like mine where they are using current sales data its pretty damn cool.
I can look current recent sales data on my country govt web site but the way that Zillow overlays it with map data makes it much easier to look around.