Why You Should Never Trust a Zestimate

If you’re a serious buyer or seller, you should never trust a Zestimate. Here’s why. 

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report

Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale

Today I want to tell why you should never trust a Zestimate.

To clarify, Zestimates can be helpful to people who are dabbling in real estate, but if you’re serious about buying or selling a home, it can be very misleading and cause you to leave a lot of money on the table. I’ve seen this happen many times, and here are three recent examples that I’ve been involved with.

The first involves a home we recently sold at 49 Chestnut Street in Weehawken. The Zestimate for this home was $700,353. If we listed it at that price, the property would’ve been on the market for years because it wasn’t worth anywhere near that amount. Instead, we listed the property at $410,000, and in less than 10 days, we had three offers and eventually sold it for $425,000.

The second example involves a buyer I’m working with to close on a home on Lydia Drive in Guttenberg whose Zestimate is $632,407 but got listed at $609,000. We haven’t closed yet, but my buyer has negotiated the price down to $590,000, and you can be sure he’s happy the owner didn’t go off the Zestimate value because that may have led him to believe that $609,000 wasn’t a bad list price.

Trusting a Zestimate can cost you a lot of money in a transaction.

The third example involves a single-family home in Hoboken that we recently helped sell. The Zestimate for it was $1.433 million, but we listed it at $1.525 million, received multiple offers, and sold it in less than 10 days.

As you can see, these are huge swings in prices. The reason for this is that a Zestimate is a tool that’s based solely off an algorithm. In calculating the value of a single home, it takes into account the values of the surrounding homes but not much else. Crucial details like an upgraded kitchen or bathroom get left out of a Zestimate.

If you’re serious about buying a home or getting an accurate value of a home you plan to sell, please feel free to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help!