Zoopla - Estimates - Are they fairly accurate??

brit1234

It is rubbish, you can rig the price to go up or down even if you don't own the place.

I think the olny thing you can take for granted is you bought the property at the peak of the market and prices have fallen a long way off that figure and still falling. So it could be potentially a bigger drop than £17k depending how much the original property cost.

RedfordML

Thanks Paul, used the Nationwide link which is not specific but does the area of the country I live and it states my house would be valued with a 7% drop and currently valued at 7k less than we are currently marketed for and around 11k loss since we brought, which we thought would be the case.

Catatonia

I don't think even Nationwide is totally accurate as it just gives the average of an area. You really need to know your specific market to price accurately.

RedfordML

Anyone got any specific websites for this??

Just want to know if we are realistically priced - as we, more so than our agents have set this price, although EA have not asked us to re-think?

geoffky

What did the agents value it at ?

olly300

Catatonia wrote: »

I don't think even Nationwide is totally accurate as it just gives the average of an area. You really need to know your specific market to price accurately.

Agreed.

The problem with all Halifax and Nationwide indexes is if you are in postcode where people don't buy using these companies mortgages then the price will be inaccurate.

The land registry is more accurate but then there are issues of properties not actually appearing on it at all, or properties appearing on it many months after it sold. I know of more than one property that never appeared on the land registry and another that appeared as being sold months later than it was.

jcbl

Funny. Zoopla for our new purchase comes out 0.5% below our agreed price on first go: and 4% above what we've agreed if we add a few details. Perhaps 3 houses in the postcode getting listed with asking prices 9 - 10% higher, and all selling for exactly the same price, gives it a bit of a clue (but none of them are on land registry yet from what I can see - we haven't completed yet).

Jackinbox99

Zoopla estimates are rubbish and wildly inaccurate. The best way really to try and get a rough idea as to what your house is worth is to see what has sold in your street recently.

You could take prices from 2007 and try and minus a certain percentage, but everywhere seems different and its all down to pot luck really as to what buyer comes along when you want to sell your house.

I spent ages trying to workout what my house was worth - based upon houses in my street selling over last couple of months, looking to see how the prices have changed over the last 10 years, comparing conditions of houses and trying to workout how that affected the selling price, plus having 3 seperate Estate Agents value my house.

All in all, my estimates & the valuations were about 20k too high, compared to what buyers are prepared to offer atm, compared to what they offered 2 months back.

googler

RedfordML wrote: »

Anyone got any specific websites for this??

Just want to know if we are realistically priced - as we, more so than our agents have set this price, although EA have not asked us to re-think?

Zoopla, OurProperty, MyHousePrice all have Sold prices. Sometimes there's data errors on one, and not on the others. Look at them all.

Look at your street, the surrounding streets, your district, then your village or town - in that order.

Compare your house to similar others first, then extrapolate from dis-similar ones if no similar ones are available to compare.

Concentrate on sales in recent times.

LawrenceatZoopla

Lawrence at Zoopla here. Hope you don't mind me dropping in, but I thought you might like to know there is info on Zoopla.co.uk about how Zoopla calculates value estimates. There is a link at the bottom (left) of the Zoopla home page labelled 'Zoopla Estimates' which I hope helps. Sorry, we're not allowed to post the links in the forum. Here is a little part of it:

The Zoopla valuation algorithm analyses property data on all 27 million UK homes on a continuous basis. We get our data from multiple sources including the government, estate agents, surveyors and our users. Our model looks at the relationships between transaction prices and property characteristics (type, style, # of bedrooms, etc.) and uses these patterns and trends to estimate present values. Because we add new data all the time, the range of homes for which we can provide instant estimates constantly expands, and the accuracy of our estimates constantly improves.

There is a quick guide on how to refine your Zoopla estimate on the Zoopla blog - again, sorry we cannot post the link, but you should be able to find it via the search box at the top right hand side of the blog.

Also, addressing the sold prices on Zoopla point...shortly after a property change hands, official records of the dates and transaction prices come to Zoopla.co.uk via the Land Registry and the Registrars of Scotland and are accurate.

Lastly, I previously pointed out on MSE that our valuations are not formal valuations and cannot be used as such. What they do is provide a very useful start point for researching the likely value of any home. If you are the owner of a home, we also recommend that you also get a local expert to value it. You'll find a link on the home page of Zoopla.co.uk labelled 'Estate Agents' where you can search for your local ones.

Hope this helps and sorry for the lack of links...forum rules for new users.