ZillowReviews 586

We recently put our condo that we spent the last six months renovating up for sale by owner. We did all the work. We renovated, advertised, staged and cleaned the condo thoroughly.

We made the mistake of listing it on Zillow. We had two calls the first day from direct buyers without Agents. We showed the home. They seemed to love it. We were told by the property managers that we have the most desirable location in the community. The community is also very desirable. This is why we decided to purchase the condo in the first place.

We put in stone flooring, slate patio, new paint, carpet, custom cabinets, granite etc. etc. We wanted to price it fairly- and really looked into comps in that community. We have been told also that it is very fairly priced.

We noticed that after the first day, the calls stopped and realtors appeared on our listing with the possibility to contact them to get information on the property. We received over 15 calls a day for four days from only Realtors.

Then i notices that it says on OUR for sale by owner listing "want to appear as the agent for this listing?" call this number. I called Zillow pretending to be an interested person. They explained to me that it is a way for the REALTOR to get their name out there and to have the opportunity to get involved in OUR sale. SNEAKY AND PATHETIC.

I then saw reviews from other sellers who say that Zillow directs the questions and inquiries to Realtors who know nothing about the property and who then either try to get involved to make money off the poor seller or they say that the property is not for sale.

I hope that the brilliant mind who came up with this method of sticking it to the seller puts their own blood, sweat and tears into a project only to have some one completely scam them like Zillow did to us. BEWARE OF ZILLOW

I worked with Branch Manager Paul Bosec at Sierra Pacific Mortgage in Roseville, Ca., on refinancing my home. Not only did I get a great interest rate on my mortgage, but it was done quickly and efficiently! I am extremely pleased at how Sierra Pacific patiently helped me through all the questions and hurdles that came up during the process of my refinancing. I highly recommend Sierra Pacific Mortgage in Roseville under its present manager Paul Bosec to anyone who wishes to refinance their home with excellent professionalism and true interests in their clients and their needs.

I would like to let buyers and sellers in the Storm Lake Iowa area Know of a Dedicated and Helpful Real Estate Agent. Joanne Peters of Century 21 has been working with me on selling my home in Early Iowa about 15 miles from Storm Lake. Not only did she show my home but actually found a family that was perfect for this home. The home is quite big and was perfect for a big family that needed the room for growing children. She took the initiative to show my home to the family and with her help, we were able to work out a contract to initially lease the home to them, and finally sell the home approximately 6 months later. With her help it worked out as planned and the family is extremely happy with their new home. Very Nice, Professional and will Look out for your best interests. I would recommend that anyone moving into the Storm Lake Iowa to look her up as your Real Estate Agent.

When we first started shopping for our home a few years ago our internet searches migrated toward Zillow. At first... Over time it became clear that this site was highly inaccurate, many of the homes were either no longer listed or sold... Fast forward 3 years... We have since purchased our home (no Zillow was of no assistance in doing this. Fortunately we had a fantastic realtor whom guided us in the right direction)
I was curious to see if current information was available upon the Zillow site as an experiment. Low and behold Zillow is at least consistent in that our home value and our neighborhood data was at least one year old. Listing values of 100K or more lower than what the current market and comps state. (even the satellite images shown are of dirt lots at least 3 years old) My warning to any who stray into this grey area of ineptitude... Take it with a grain of salt. There are many other outlets who at least make an effort at accuracy. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Zillow is only in business to generate revenue from advertising.

My active listing on Zillow is erroneously listed as Off Market. Yesterday morning Zillow "corrected" this temporarily, because later in the day it reverted to Off Market. Their history section claims that my realtor took it off the market yesterday, but my realtor stated that they never touched the site that day. I fear that potential buyers are overlooking my home due to this HUGE mistake. Zillow says that it often takes 3-4 weeks for MLS information to update on Zillow; this is unacceptable in today's real estate market. Also, Zestimates are not anywhere near correct; there must be a better site from which they make their calculations.

Why is a listing I just put in under FSBO being redirected first to other agents under the 'check to contact here section', before actually contacting the owner who's selling the property? I tested this 'anonymously' and already had one agent tell me that the listing I just put in wasn't for sale. Zillow support tells me they offer the buyer a 'buyer's agent' option - only the agent option is first to automatically be checked for contact. If you don't catch this a potential buyer who wants to contact the FSBO, is redirected to a real estate agent.

UPDATE - Zillow sent me several links to get the problem fixed. One involved getting the agent to post the listing at NO charge, but after sending him the link and how to fix it, nothing happened. So I followed the link to re-post the house on my own- again - no charge. All the original listing information was there except for pictures, so after a few minutes uploading the pictures I wanted to show, the listing was back up. The only thing is that it now shows "For Sale By Owner"
Evidently there was a dispute between ListHub (feed provider) and the realtor. As the realtor himself could have fixed the problem for NO CHARGE, in less than 30 minutes, I am seriously thinking of upgrading realtors.
Though I feel that even if a listing has been pulled by a feed provider the status shouldn't be automatically "off market" unless there has been specific verification, I feel much better about Zillow.
Zillow refuse to show correct status of my house, which is FOR SALE. Zillow intentionally shows FALSE information by showing it "Off Market". I have tried to get them to correct this, but they refuse, and are causing me potential financial harm. I have reported them to consumer affairs, as they claim it is information in an MLS feed, which is FALSE. The MLS feed is received by all the realtors, and their sites are showing my house as "For Sale" and show proper price reductions. They should be required to show true information, not INTENTIONALLY show False information.

I bought my 2 bedroom coop 2 years ago. Since then while the housing prices around me have risen significantly (the same exact units on the floors both above and below me both sold recently at much higher prices), Zillow has been regularly sending me notifications that the value of my home has dropped. Zillow now values it about a third of what I paid for it, and about one-fifth of to one-quarter of what similar units in my building and in my neighborhood have sold for.

I agree with all the comments on Zestimate and share the frustration expressed by owners advertising on this website. But there's another factor that nobody has mentioned: experience with local real estate agents.
Since Zillow and Trulia combined a few months ago, For Sale By Owner (FSBO) ads now appear on both websites. Owners are no longer asked whether they agree to pay the buyer's agent a 2%-3% commission. Instead, real estate agents can now advertise their services, thus giving buyers an opportunity to contact the owner directly or seek an agent's assistance.
Since this summer a trend has emerged. Some local real estate agents who do not advertise on Zillow or Trulia have approached me and offered to charge as little as 4% instead of the usual 5%-6%, if I let them list my property. This is a welcome change, but there is a catch. The 4% commission only applies if the broker himself or herself procures "a buyer who is ready, willing and able to purchase the property". If, however, another broker procures "a buyer who is ready, willing and able," the commission rises to 6% split equally between the two brokers. This is the Compensation clause found in the Exclusive Listing Agreement used in Florida.
Finally, sellers who use a real estate agent to represent them should also pay attention to the Conditional Termination clause which requires a seller to pay expenses incurred by the agency in marketing the property, if the agreement is terminated.
I continue to believe that the Zestimate should be removed but, given the recent changes in Zillow's website and the addition of Trulia, I am prepared to raise my rating to two stars.

My house was listed as being in a different ( very low ranking) school district. People have actually refused to view my house because of this. I have contacted Zillow repeatedly to have this corrected. They have admitted their mistake but say they are not able to make any changes to my listing for at least a month until their next system upgrade.

1. No on the ground knowledge of home values.
2. Do not go by these values as they are off as much as 20% in either direction.
3. Location of house does not matter to them, when we have all learned that location is very important when it comes to real estate.
4. A house can be on dry land or have a beautiful water view and that is not taken into consideration.
5. Do your own due diligence, check your location, speak with neighbors, go to a reliable real estate agent and save yourself a lot of mind games and aggravation than by using Zillow.

As a premier agent on Zillow.com, the consumer needs to know how inaccurate this web-site is on their zestimates and at times homes that are no longer on the market are still listed as active listings on Zillow.com. Consumers need to contact a local Real Estate Professional to obtain the most accurate information for homes that interest them. Also, I would like people to know that Premier Agents pay Zillow a lot of money every month and sometimes don't receive many leads. Every time I have spoke with anyone at Zillow, it seems their favorite word is "unfortunately." They want a lot of money per zip code but everything has to be their way. Even when I would like to pay my bill early to Zillow, the word I get is "unfortunately." I can go online to my bank, to department stores, to all my utility companies and pay my bill any time I would like but EVERYTHING you want out of Zillow.com is "Unfortunate."