Home Value Update

Amidst reports that home prices are continuing their record plunge, I became curious to see what my house is currently valued at according to a few online estimates. Briefly, I bought it in January 2007 and it was a fixer-upper that I’ve since done a lot of improvements to. You can go here for more background on my house. Here are the percentage changes since I bought it:

• Zillow: +12%
• Cyberhomes: -8.4%
• Eppraisal: 0%
• Real Estate.com: -4%

Not very conclusive! I’d never expect an online tool to be very precise, but I did hope that the estimates would be somewhat closer to each other. I think that the Zillow estimate is actually the closest to reality, and not because it gave me the highest percentage (or because it has the most interactive and detailed site). I like Zillow’s estimate because it is the only tool that allows me to enter info about my home, meaning that it takes into account the improvements I’ve made since I purchased it (the value you give your improvements is subject to Remodeling Magazine’s Cost vs. Value recalibration, but you can override it if you wish). A few months ago, a similar house down the street sold for a 7% increase of my purchase price. My house has a new kitchen and bigger yard, but they have an extra half-bath and bigger basement. I’m calling that a wash, and so I think I could get roughly the same price as those owners did.

So if I think that to be the case, why did the others give me a decrease down to 8.4%? Take a look at the image from Zillow. This shows the period from my purchase to the current, and blue is USA, light green is my zip code, and dark green is my house (why it says I’m at 5% baffles me, because if I change the chart to dollar amounts, the percentage is the aforementioned 12%). You can see that the decreases in my zip code and the country overall are roughly the same. But that kind of decrease really isn’t true in my neighborhood. My town shares a zip code with another town that is all over the place in terms of values- from million dollar homes to rentals that are in disrepair. I assume the overall zip code might be dragging my estimate down.

I’m curious to know if anyone else puts much credence into these type of tools or if anyone uses any other method of valuation.