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Brian C · Guest

Recently I was following up on a property that was for sale in my old neighborhood and saw that I was sold.

I jumped over to Zillow to find out how much it sold for. The previous owners bought the property in mid 2006 for $860k. I knew they overpaid for the property and was going to take a big hit when trying to sell it.

Well it sold 2 months ago for $749k (nice drop huh?) but what is interesting Zillow is not counting the sale number under their Estimates. They flagged the sale with a *. Here is what they say:

Transaction Not Included in Zestimate:
This transaction was not used in computing the Zestimate for this house due to anomalies we detected with this transaction. These anomalies can include unusual document or transaction types, sales between possibly related parties, unusually high or low transaction prices, or other data irregularities that might indicate the transaction is not a full-value, arms-length transaction.

So because this property might of been a short sale or foreclosure, they will not count it under the Zestimate and possibly effect other area homes. What a way to protect the sellers!!

admin · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:44 pm GMT Post subject:

Other people have also noticed Zillow excluding sales that are low, even if the price was in Zillow's own value range:

http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/2008/03/price-drop-so-steep-even-zillow-didnt.html

- admin

bdavis · Guest

Zillow is an operative of the real esate industry. It exists for the
purpose of keeping the prices seemingly high.
Bottom line: you cant's trust zillow.

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

Another reason why you shouldn't feel bad about lowballing:\

If you're trying to get into a place that is asking $400k and you offer $350k, the person who's selling it to you might be asking $100k for what they're getting into. It's all relative, and this is why I say to look at price points well above and below your range. If you can see that the price point above yours is steeply discounting, if the seller selling to you is going to gain on a steep discount, he/she might have more flexibility to deal with you...

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

Sorry about the poorly worded entry...

If the person who is selling to you is trading up or relocating, they might be getting such an incredible deal that it is worth them being a little upside down on their transaction with you. If they are making out $100k on their other transaction, they might make a deal with you for a $50k loss...