Has Zillow improved in 2015 and gotten more accurate in predicting Sacramento home values? Well, no...

Zillow is a blessing and a curse. I'm sure by now most folks who have contemplated buying or selling a home in Sacramento have heard of this website by now. What is Zillow? Zillow.com is a website that, among other things, provides information about neighborhoods and properties.

Zillow is a neat website. I have an agent profile on Zillow. I have clients who have found me or found my listings using Zillow. However, my general thought about Zillow is that while it's a fun consumer tool that provides property information to people looking to buy or sell (or even rent property now), the vast majority of the time, the "Zestimate" (aka, the automated estimate of value that the website dreams up for a property), is usually not close to the market value of a Sacramento area property, and the homes listed for sale on the website are not always current. I usually look at Zillow before I meet with new sellers, because I know they have looked their home's value up there...this helps me know in advance if I will be surprising them with more value, or disappointing them with less value.

As I said, Zillow is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it DOES have some useful information there, cool mapping tools, some property characteristics, etc. It's a curse because most people I talk to think Zillow has current data and that the website knows everything when it comes to local real estate values. Let me tell you -- it does not have current information, and an algorithm does not replace a real estate professional who intimately knows the market. Occasionally it will get reasonably close, but I find more often than not it is WILDLY off. And folks contact me every week asking about properties posted on Zillow that have already sold.

I posted a few times last couple years about how the sales prices of my transactions compare to Zillow data. I've closed 10 transactions in the last couple months so let's take a look to see how close Zillow is to the actual selling prices of these properties.  This information is current as of today, December 27nd, 2015.

10267 Croydon Way, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670; this was a short sale home I listed (represented the seller) in Rancho Cordova. The original listing price was $199,500 (price was pre-approved by the lender Wells Fargo and by Fannie Mae), and this closed on 9/17/15 for $195,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $229,404, approximately 15% above it's selling price. Wow...that's one heck of a difference.

3073 Sand Dollar Way, Sacramento, CA 95821; this was a home I sold (represented the buyer) in the Arden area. The original listing price was $399,950, and this closed on 9/18/15 for $361,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $305,224, approximately 18% below it's selling price. Hmm...we are 2 for 2 with large differences already.

4241 62nd Street, Sacramento, CA 95820; this was a home I listed (represented the seller) in the Tallac Village / Tahoe Park area. The original listing price was $269,900, and this closed on 9/30/15 for $275,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $266,444, approximately 3.2% below it's selling price. Ok that's at least a little bit closer.

7110 Stella Lane #13, Carmichael, CA 95608; this was a condo I sold (represented the buyer) in Carmichael. The original listing price was $117,900, and this closed on 10/5/15 for $118,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $116,555, approximately 1.2% below it's selling price. Ok, reasonably close.

2180 Weller Way, Sacramento, CA 95818; this was a home I sold (represented the buyer) in the Land Park neighborhood. The original listing price was $359,000, and this closed on 11/2/15 for $363,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $371,956, approximately 2.4% above it's selling price.

36 Glenville Circle, Sacramento, CA 95826; this was a home I sold (represented the buyer) in the College Greens neighborhood. The original listing price was $307,000, and this closed on 11/9/15 for $325,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $321,022, approximately 1.3% below it's selling price.

1750 Baines Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95835; this was a home I listed (represented the seller) in the Natomas Park area. The original listing price was $525,000, and this closed on 11/18/15 for $499,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $495,024, approximately 1% below it's selling price.

10 Shearwater Court, Sacramento, CA 95833; this was a short sale home I listed (represented the seller) in the Natomas Shorebird area. The original listing price was $375,000, and this closed on 11/20/15 for $380,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $474,204, approximately 25% above it's selling price. Yikes!

2025 Vallejo Way, Sacramento, CA 95818; this was a home I listed (represented the seller) in the Land Park area. The original listing price was $449,000, and this closed on 12/3/15 for $449,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $469,379, approximately 4.5% below it's selling price.

2025 Bidwell Way, Sacramento, CA 95818; this was a home I sold (represented the buyer) in the Land Park neighborhood. The original listing price was $599,000, and this closed on 12/4/15 for $599,000. Zillow's Zestimate: $560,980, approximately 6.3% below it's selling price.

So as you can see...there are a couple transactions where Zillow gets pretty close, however the vast majority are off thousands of dollars and several percent from the final selling price.