Zoopla

liam_h

How accurate is Zoopla? The house we're looking at is on for 135,000. But the estimate on Zoopla is for 100k. We were going to go in at around 115k but now I'm wondering.

PasturesNew

It is not accurate.

Zoopla is a nice bit of fun in the mosaic of establishing if you are interested in buying a house... or an interesting parlour game.

If you have 10 identical houses in a row, sold at various times over the past 10 years, it'll give you different valuations for each one, based on each month's individual house price movements in that area over those 10 years since it last sold.. It won't reflect improvements/abandonment to each one. It won't reflect special low prices one person paid (maybe bought it nearly derelict), or special high prices paid (found an idiot).

I was looking at two identical one-bed flats earlier in the week:
Flat 1: Sold at £125k in August 2007
Flat 2: Sold at £125k in August 2007

Flat 1: Sold at £95k in March 2008
Flat 2: On the market now for £70k.... Zoopla says it's worth £110k, but a 2-bed's just gone "sold" on RM for under £100k.

sinbad182

Its very inaccurate in terms of valuations. The only useful application it has is to monitor recently sold prices, so you know what the market is like in the immediate area.

I find the 'valuations' on Zoopla seem to come in a fair whack below the market reality, and mouseprice comes a fair whack above the market reality.

liam_h

I didn't think it was that accurate, but what about the home value sections for the house - the bit that has a graph showing valuations for the house over a period of time. According to this the house has never been valued at over 120k - where does this info come from or is it another estimate.

rosyw

Oh how I wish the valuations were accurate -it said mine was worht £700K!! I wish!!

westlondonbuyer

Before we sold, my husband and I monitored the price of our respective flats obsessively on every information source we could find, and Zoopla tended to inflate prices by about 15%. Yet it didn't do so consistently - so we'd see identical places with as much as £400k variation in its valuation, just depending on when they were sold. Nonetheless, it's a good information source and handy to have as part of the buying/selling arsenal. I know for a fact that estate agents use it to calculate asking prices in areas where there are very few sales.

googler

Look at zoopla's SOLD prices for your street, along with ourproperty, nethouseprice, and others. Look for sold prices for similar houses to yours in your street and surrounding streets.

This will be your best guide to what yours might sell for.

Estimates in Zoopla are just that - estimates. Zoopla doesn't know for certain what mix of houses are in a street, and it can't tell house sales from land sales. It doesn't know which houses have been extended, doesn't know which houses are being purchased under right-to-buy at lower than normal market rates, etc etc

For an area near me, a patch of farmland had been sold to a big housing developer for over £1million. Looking at the average price for the village, where nothing had ever sold over £200k or so, the average price for the village was up at £750k!

Charliezoo

I don't take much notice of Zoopla now - we're buying a semi which has been valued on Zoopla at 30k less than its identical partner next door!

loracan1

rosyw wrote: »

Oh how I wish the valuations were accurate -it said mine was worht £700K!! I wish!!

It says my tiny 2 bed terrace in the North West is £650,000, but that might be the extra 4 bedrooms and swimming pool I added.

Chris2685

I think it's a good starting point. They're obviously not going to sit and work out every single property in the UK on a special basis. They offer feedback to change the valuations, and you can use your best judgement to decide if the house is valued correctly or not.

At the end of the day, the value of a house is what the purchasor is willing to pay for it.