Zillow™ TUTORIAL

Introduction

Whether you are a buyer, a seller or just interested in the price of a home in almost any area of the country, Zillows is an invaluable tool to help you gather information.  It is likened to do for real estate what the Kelly Blue Book does for cars.

Zillow.com lets anyone track the value of any property in the United States, look up property tax bills and compare the information across a neighborhood, city, state and the entire nation.  The data, drawn largely from public records, covers 60 million of the nation's 85 million single-family homes and many condominiums, with enough information on 40 million properties to provide up-to-date pricing data.

The values are derived from a proprietary mathematical formula Zillow.com calls a “Zestimator,” which factors in sales of comparable homes.  Users can adjust the figure by adding in factors that are not available in Zillow's database, such as the value of recently completed home improvements.

The company lists a margin-of-error factor for each market so users can determine how close the numbers provided should come to actual market values.

Without having to reveal any information about yourself or pay a fee, you can enter an address to see the value of a home along with satellite, aerial or parcel views of the property.  The site provides valuations for all homes, on or off the market and the data base is updated daily.

The site provides a rich trove of other data: a month-by-month 10-year appreciation history for each property, details gleaned from public records, such as square footage and number of bedrooms and bathrooms.  Owners' names will not be available.

Started by Expedia founder and former CEO Richard Barton, who says, "We hope this provides transparency so consumers will be able to more aggressively negotiate with service providers.  They've never been able to see the whole store.  Now we're turning on the lights.   Buyers can see home values to avoid overpaying.  Sellers can use our home-valuation tools to arrive at the right selling price. And owners can track the value of their most important asset."

Using the Site

The site is very user friendly with excellent instructions for using its advanced features.

Buyers

  •  Compare home values to avoid overpaying.
  •  Maps - Scope out neighborhoods of interest and look at home values.
  •  Comps - Review recently sold homes to get a sense of neighborhood trends.
  •  Zestimate - Compare the homes estimated value to the asking price.

Sellers

  •  Use home valuation tools to arrive at the right selling price.
  •  Zestimate™ - Enter your address to get an idea of what your home is worth.
  •  My Zestimator™ - Use this 5-step tool to further refine the estimated market value of your home.
  •  Comps - Review comps of nearby homes to arrive at a fair selling price.  See what your agent sees.

Owners

  •  Track the value of your most important asset
  •  Zestimate - Look at the current estimated market value and other data about your home.
  •  My Zestimator - Update changes you've made to your home to arrive at a revised value.
  •  Zindex™- Find out how your home stacks up compared to others in your ZIP code.
  •  A little vitamin Z will help you become a knowledgeable home buyer, home seller or homeowner.

The Morris Team

The Morris Team believes that the best way to establish a relationship with our customers is to provide them with an internet site that contains all the information they need and not to obligate them or require them to provide us with their identity to obtain information from that site.  We feel that when the customer is ready to seek professional help from our team that he will contact us. There is only so much information and knowledge one can gain from searching the internet and there will come a point when the customer needs someone on the ground who knows the business and the area and will provide them with the professional services they need to complete the transaction.  We will be here to give you that personal service.