This was in a comment, but I’m pulling it out because I think it’s important:<\/p>\n
A Zestimate cannot be “off” or “on”. It cannot be accurate or inaccurate. What is being evaluated is not a house but statistics and documents about that house. As I have demonstrated, the Zestimated house may not even be there<\/a>. The results can have a greater or lesser correspondence to reality — which attribute is equally true of astrology — but a Zestimate is not a statement about<\/i> reality. This issue is not whether or not the Zestimate is more or less correspondent to reality. The issue is whether it is wise to substitute calculations based upon statistics and documents about a house for an actual, objective, on-site evaluation of that house. This is a determination an informed party — such as a mortgage lender — can make at his own peril. To induce ordinary haphazardly-informed consumers to do so strikes me as being fraudulent.<\/p>\n Why does it matter? From another comment:<\/p>\n Here are some good ol’ boys in Texas who are using Zillow.com to milk the rubes<\/a>. They’re responsible for their own behavior, of course, but who made it possible?<\/p>\n The fact is, this scheme is only possible because Zillow.com has represented itself as an authoritative source when the principals of the company know that is untrue. The people running this game can gull the public because the public comes to them having been pre-gulled by Zillow.com. Technorati Tags: blogging<\/a>, disintermediation<\/a>, real estate<\/a>, real estate marketing<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was in a comment, but I’m pulling it out because I think it’s important: A Zestimate cannot be “off” or “on”. It cannot be accurate or inaccurate. What is being evaluated is not a house but statistics and documents about that house. As I have demonstrated, the Zestimated house may not even be there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,5,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-disintermediation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-zillowcom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/307\/incremental-movement-toward-a-blanket-zillowcom-disclaimer\/","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":0},"title":"Incremental movement toward a blanket Zillow.com disclaimer?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Today brings a game effort by David Gibbons of Zillow Blog to address Zillow.com's disclosure\/disclaimer issue. The problem for me is that the material he cites is at least one click deeper than where he puts is and two clicks deeper than where it should be. Even worse, the page\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/134\/debunking-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":1},"title":"Debunking Zillow.com . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Zillow.com got itself a ton of new venture capital yesterday, so today seems like a fine time to deconstruct its praxis. When Zillow was brand new, Catherine Reagor, the dippy local real estate reporter for the Arizona Republic wrote:Want a reality check? Go to zillow.com, a new Web site with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1028,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1028\/travel-through-time-as-you-learn-to-take-your-zestimate-with-1027631-grains-of-salt\/","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":2},"title":"Travel through time as you learn to take your Zestimate with 1.027631 grains of salt . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sunday New York Times will have a feature on hi-tech real estate, but you can see it today through the miracle of Google. Not hugely interesting, more a catalog of press releases. Kristal Kraft gets a chance to strut, which is fun. And: Zillow.com says you have to take\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":214,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/214\/conjurers-confounded-reality-is-what-it-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":3},"title":"Conjurers confounded: Reality is what it is . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Burslem:If enough people believe their Zestimate to be true (consumers, journalists, realtors, whomever) - then reality really can be altered. It just shows how malleable the wisdom of the crowds really is.Oh, good grief... Consciousness does not cause reality. The meta-topic is interesting, however, first because it highlights one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":592,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/592\/defending-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":4},"title":"Defending Zillow.com . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Picture yourself living in Boston, Massachusetts, where the climate is six months of drizzle and mud followed by six months of deep snow and permafrost. Let's say it comes to your mind to bid a final farewell to all things wintery and shuffle off to the endless, boundless, soul-enriching sunny\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/271\/zindicated-is-this-zillowed-seller-proof-of-the-need-for-even-greater-zillification\/","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":5},"title":"Zindicated! Is this Zillowed seller proof of the need for even greater Zillification?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Frankly, no. Christine at NY Houses 4 Sale cites a Realty Times article about a seller who immediately pulled his home off the market after a prospective buyer confronted him with a Zestimate $500,000 below his assessed value. His conclusion is that Zillow.com has made his home unmarketable. My first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/p>\n