Your Exceptional Life

In recent years a couple of automated real estate valuation websites have cropped up. The two biggies are Zillow.com and Cyberhomes.com. The way they are set up they take recent sales in your area and factor that into your most recent sale and “guesstimate” what your home is worth. They are chock full of disclaimers, but we don’t read fine print. The truth of the matter is they’re just ballpark guesses. Zillow.com currently has my home guesstimated at $405,000. What they don’t know is that since I bought that property, it’s had an entire remodel. It’s a coat of exterior paint away from being one of those clean homes that are selling right now. That’s right. Clean, finished upgraded homes in decent neighborhoods with good schools are still selling. There are plenty of bottom feeders out there right now, but sometimes a real family needs a real home because their family expanded. Maybe Jr. is too big to share a bedroom any more. Maybe Nonna had to move in with the family. Maybe they’re now empty nesters. People still have to live their lives and life involves change sometimes.

Back to the Farm. I could probably get $485k for it on the open market right now. I would have to stage it properly and it would have to be marketed properly, but it would move. Cyberhomes.com guesstimates my home at $492,500. They don’t know about the remodel either. They’re wrong too. The point is, that while these websites are nice tools, unless you have the skills of appraising in this market, which would be acquired by viewing many homes, not just yours, you really need a Real Estate Professional if you’re going to sell in this market.

I found this article in the Chronicle yesterday. I just love with the media validates my contrarian point of view.