Here’s a simple fact, one of the most important reasons why homeowners need professional representation to market their houses: Diogenes himself could not find an objective seller. It’s not enough to detail everything that’s wrong with the neighbor’s homes, the more important job, in a listing appointment, is to tell the Realtor why this<\/i> home is worth much more than mere facts would indicate. The average American is slightly above average, and the average American bathroom remodel is worth tens of thousands of dollars more than you ever might have guessed.<\/p>\n
This is to be expected. It’s simply not in our nature to discount for subjectivity where we are most in need of such a discounting. My kid’s smarter than your kid, and Helen herself is but a shadow to my best-beloved. This is only too human.<\/p>\n
So: Zillow.com has a problem. People treat its silly Zestimates as though they were appraisals, even though anyone should know they can’t<\/i> be appraisals. You could say caveat lector<\/i>, but readers of Zillow.com’s web site have to dig pretty deep to find any caveats. What they find instead are big type and goofy pictures entreating you to… treat its silly Zestimates as though they were appraisals…<\/p>\n
There is an obvious solution to this problem: Put up a disclaimer in even bigger type that says: “Ahem! A silly Zestimate is not an appraisal, which cannot be done without an objective, on-site inspection of a property.” That would be honest, and it would be sufficient to advise Zillow.com users that an Automated Valuation Method cannot reliably establish the value of real property.<\/p>\n
This they will not do, possibly because it would cause those users to wonder why the hell they’re bothering with a tool that is admittedly useless. So rather than admit the nakedly obvious truth, Zillow.com has elected instead to propagate thousands of tiny lies.<\/p>\n
In a comment posted here on September 1<\/a>, David G. from Zillow.com broke this news:<\/p>\n Lastly, just a heads-up that we’ve decided to let homeowners edit and publish corrected home facts on Zillow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That<\/a> shoe<\/a> finally<\/a> dropped<\/a> last<\/a> night<\/a>. Rich Barton, Zillow.com’s chairman and CEO, made the <\/a>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s a simple fact, one of the most important reasons why homeowners need professional representation to market their houses: Diogenes himself could not find an objective seller. It’s not enough to detail everything that’s wrong with the neighbor’s homes, the more important job, in a listing appointment, is to tell the Realtor why this home […]<\/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":[3,7,6,5,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-enduring-interest","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":188,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/188\/tell-the-world-zillowcom-is-bunk\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":0},"title":"Tell the world: Zillow.com is bunk . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote Debunking Zillow.com on July 25th, two weeks ago today. Without being arcane or technical, I think it completely demolishes the idea that Zillow.com can -- or ever can -- provide reliable home values. Nathan Hughes at Richmond Business and Commercial News wrote about my post, and, in a\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":55,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/55\/one-year-of-experience-eleven-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":1},"title":"One year of experience eleven times…?","author":"Odysseus","date":"February 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Our most favorite real estate oracle, Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic weighs in with some observations that may actually be as undefended as they are unthought out. In fairness to Ms. Reagor, I'll quote her text as I explore it:Bad news for the many homeowners trying to sell: It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1278,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1278\/more-random-notes-on-zillowcom-conquering-fear-uncertainty-and-doubt-to-become-the-neighborhood-superhero\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":2},"title":"More random notes on Zillow.com: Conquering fear, uncertainty and doubt to become the neighborhood superhero","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Michael Wurzer and others are tying themselves up in knots trying to prove that they understand what Zillow is doing wrong. My take is that they don't even understand what Zillow is doing, so, necessarily, it's going to look wrong to them from their frame of reference. I said this\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":4152,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4152\/zillowcom-the-reconometrics-firm-of-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":3},"title":"Zillow.com: The “REconometrics” Firm of the Future?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you been watching Zillow.com lately, in the press? They've done a nice job at selling the mainstream media that they are the \"real estate statistics\" firm of choice. With the introduction of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, they are aggregating real-time live quotes and are positioned to trump other media sites\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":877,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/877\/feed-the-starving-realtybot-zillowcom-is-underwhelming-so-far-as-a-national-property-listings-service\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":4},"title":"Feed the starving Realty.bot: Zillow.com is underwhelming, so far, as a National Property Listings Service . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I think I have to back off -- for now, at least -- from my earlier expectations for Zillow.com as an incipient National Property Listings Service. To this date, anyway, Zillow's appeal to sellers and listing agents has been underwhelming, at best. As I write, there are 19,250 homes listed\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":4778,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4778\/zillowcom-creates-a-directory-of-real-estate-agents-who-cant-sell\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":5},"title":"Zillow.com creates a directory of real estate agents who can’t sell","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay here's the good news: You have another opportunity to garner a do-follow link from Zillow.com. And here's the bad news: For that link to do you any good, your best bet is to be a really bad listing agent. The more listings you can accumulate on Zillow.com -- which\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","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=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}