For months now you’ve probably heard the doom and gloom predictions of the media and real estate experts about how the market is in a dive, home value averages are falling and the housing bubble has burst. Zillow is one of the more popular real estate websites that offer many of these tools. Our free online tool gives you estimated market value and tax information for up to 10 properties. However, when you are want to price a home to sell or you want to know what a home is really worth so you can buy now, its numbers are not accurate enough.
For the homes I’ve searched, it provided reasonably accurate values and provides much of the same demographic data that the other websites offer. It seems that while home prices for the entire DC Metro area declined some 11{7c352f4fa08585812fe49d64b966ab1fc9eda250e0643651a7855d798aa89d13} last year, there was a distinctive pattern to the local variations within that data.
The best way to see where home value prices are going in a given area is to examine past home value and sales trends, the economy, population, job opportunities, unemployment rates and attraction of that area. In recent months, home-price growth had become weaker as would-be buyers were priced out of these and other markets.
The median existing house price increased 4.3{7c352f4fa08585812fe49d64b966ab1fc9eda250e0643651a7855d798aa89d13} from a year ago to an all-time high of $285,700 in June. So when someone asks a Realtor are Zillow home value estimates accurate†you will probably see a look like the one in the picture above. Using public records like property transfers, deeds of ownership and tax assessments along with some mathematical modeling, these tools try to predict your home’s value based on recent sales and listing prices in the area.
Western Idaho and the Idaho Falls region has seen an increase in average home value and it looks as those prices on existing homes and new construction will continue to rise, based on rising costs of materials and consumer demand. One factor leading to higher prices – low mortgage costs are luring more prospective buyers into the market.