Beware of Zillow's Home Estimates

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale

As a real estate professional, I'm continually bombarded by the question, "Why does Zillow price my Jacksonville home differently?"

If we go on Zillow's website, this is how they explain it: The Zestimate is created by an automatic software process designed by statisticians, and there is no ability for humans to manually alter the Zestimate for a specific property.

To make that more clear, let's say a home is estimated to be worth $500,000. If the Zestimate is off by 10%, that's a difference of $50,000! If the home is under-priced, you're missing out on tens of thousands of dollars. If your home is overpriced by 10%, it will sit on the market for awhile, and you might have to drop the price, causing buyers to wonder what's wrong with the home.

It's been estimated that Zillow's home estimates are only right 7% of the time. That means that they are wrong 93% of the time! That is a terrible success rate.

Remember, Zillow can't take features or upgrades on your property and compare them to other recently closed homes in your area, even though doing so gives you a more updated value on your property. Zillow doesn't walk through your home, and that's where my team can come in and place an accurate value on your home.

Ultimately, if you want the most accurate price for your home, make an appointment with a real estate professional. Skip the nonsense and have a real estate professional find the true market value of your home. They'll factor in the condition, location, upgrades, and amenities of the home in order to find it. If you have any questions about how we can do that for you, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to help!

If you have any questions, or if you're interested in a home valuation, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!

My Jacksonville Real Estate Predictions for 2016

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale

Today, I want to go over my 2016 real estate market predictions. In order to understand where we're going, first you have to know where we're coming from.

2015 had the highest volume of sales in Northeast Florida that we've seen since the bubble years. Last year, 26,607 properties sold. That is an incredibly high number of transactions!

Not only did the number of transactions increase, but home values are up as well. Overall, our market saw an average of 6.9% appreciation, which is way over what a normal average would be.

In 2016, I believe the volume of home sales will be somewhere in that mid-20,000 range, with 24,000 to 26,000 transactions. However, we should see more modest appreciation in the 3 to 5% range.

I also predict that 2016 will be the year of the buyer. The Fed started raising interest rates at the end of 2015, and they should continue to increase throughout 2016. I expect interest rates will be at 5.25% by the end of the year, so buyers will be trying to lock in low rates this year.

Additionally, here in Jacksonville, a lot of our renters put 50% of their income into their lease. In short, most renters are paying way more money than they should. These renters could probably buy a house for less money than what they're paying to rent it.

Finally, Jacksonville has an incredibly young population. Millennial buyers should be out and about in 2016 looking to make that first real estate purchase. These three factors combined make 2016 the year of the buyer.

However, all this market activity still makes 2016 a great year to sell. If you have any questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!