Zillow, the real estate social networking service is facing a cease and desist order in the state of Arizona. The order has been issued citing the fact that Zillow needs to be a certified appraiser in order to provide such information to the general public. Zillow gets its information from public documents and offers property estimates along with being a social network for home buyers, sellers and renters.
Zillow has been disliked from the start by many in the real estate industry, including Realtors and the National Community of Reinvestment Coalition, who insist that the real estate estimates provided by Zillow are way off the mark. Zillow on the other hand is obviously guilty of making real estate information, that was previously buried under loads of public documents, easily accessible to home buyers and sellers. This information was the only competitive advantage that Realtors had over general public, and also a prime argument and source of income for them.
The efforts of Realtors and their allies in order to stop, and suppress Zillow would be futile, because tools and services that make the playing field equal can never be squashed. Zillow has also recently added Q&A to all the house listings, thus allowing users to ask any question about any listing on Zillow. StreetAdvisor and YourStreet are some other services that are targeting the real estate market, in order to make local information more readily accessible.
[via. original source The Columbian]
Hi, it’s David from Zillow. Thanks for our support.
Just FYI: Zillow is not “illegal” anywhere and you can still find Zestimates and more in Arizona (and the rest of the country) on our site.
Here’s an update on the AZ issue;
Zillow has received two letters from the AZ board of Appraisers and we disagree with their suggestion that Zillow.com is providing appraisals. That assertion is simply false; Zestimate values on Zillow are the output of our proprietary automated valuation models (AVM) and are not the result of an appraisal. We hope to clear up this confusion soon and are focused on productively resolving this matter with the AZ Attorney General’s office.
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Zillow “Guess-Idiots” appear to rely on public tax records that in some cases haven’t been updated in twenty-five years. The zestimator is a sketchy tool to rely on. I believe it’s best to use a Professional Realtor when appraising property.
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Zillow is not an appraisal site. It is a free service that offers property values estimates based on an automated valuation model. Does it have erroneous valuations? Of course – in the same way that counties generate erroneous property values for tax purposes.
But what ever happened to buyer beware? And there isn’t even a buyer involved! It is a free service.
Everyone needs to chill out.
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