Zillow sees gap between housing perception, reality
Sixty-two percent of homeowners it surveyed said they believe their values are the same as or more than they were a year ago. But Zillow says its newest real estate market report will show values dropping for 77 percent of U.S. homes. That's such a mirror-image result that the company now has a Home Value Misperception Index to track the gap over time.
"Whether it's apathy, confusion or just plain denial, homeowners seem to believe the housing crisis affects every other home but 'not my house,'" the company said in a press release today.
Most of those surveyed are not trying to sell, by the way.
Zillow says its poll was done online by Harris Interactive at the end of June and beginning of July. Just over 2,000 adults participated, 1,361 of whom are homeowners.
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Comments
Zillow is in denial about its assessment values as well. I was watching my property value on their site for a while until this winter when the new city assessments came due. Then one day out of the blue the price jumped up by about 25% and all the historical data was completely different. I'd noticed this happen before but never quite so drastically. Guess a few people were using Zillow for evidence to appeal their high assessments and someone gave Zillow a 'stern-talking-to' regarding the values they put on homes... I can see them tweaking their algorithms, but they're all over the map.
Posted by: dave | August 6, 2008 1:25 PM
Maryland is 7th on Freddie's list of states with the highest Alt-A delinquencies.
Posted by: John | August 6, 2008 1:27 PM
The prices rise for tax, but fall for sale? Can it be???
Posted by: darnell | August 6, 2008 11:30 PM
Interesting but not surprising. It seems silly to ask those who are not considering selling. It makes a lot more sense to poll those who are activley or at least considering selling.
Posted by: Ned Carey | August 6, 2008 11:45 PM
I personally think Zillow is just a random number generator.
Posted by: Jelena | August 8, 2008 1:45 PM
There is a lot of detailed information on Zillow, their Zestimates and appraisals on Real Estate Wiki, the free online real estate encyclopedia.
Posted by: John | August 8, 2008 7:18 PM
Ned here makes a good point. polling people not looking to sell doesn't makes sense. In addition, we all know zillow "statistics" are shaky at best, and their system can be fun, but you CANNOT trust their numbers as gospel. Why believe that these "statistics" are any more accurate?
Posted by: Jonathan Benya | August 10, 2008 11:19 AM