Nonprofit alleges Zillow estimates are inaccurate

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition has filed a complaint with FTC contending that Zillow.com knowingly deceives the public by presenting its property estimates as accurate, whereas in fact they are frequently far off the mark.

The nonprofit coalition, which is comprised of housing and economic justice organizations around the country, says its own audit of Zillow's accuracy documented that its valuations are within 10 percent of actual market value "less than one-third of the time."

Read more about this here.

I think Zillow is a great idea and a fun website to play with. However, I have seen some large discrepencies between what a home is actually worth and what Zillow says it is worth. I have to give them credit for being in the ball park quite often with many of their valuations.

I have met with a few potential sellers in Sarasota that rely heavily on Zillows valuation of their real estate. We ultimately did not work together because I thought they were asking too much as they were following Zillows opinion of value. So far I have been right.

Whether Zillow is purposely trying to decive the public is not really my concern. I really don't know what they would stand to gain by doing that. I still think Zillow is a great place to get an estimate of value.