Zoopla estimates

teddysmum

One in our section of the estate a house sold for £105000, last year, needing a quick sale and badly in need of new windows, kitchen, bathroom and drive.


A developer is doing it up ,but it's nowhere near finished and the price has jumped to £150000, with the only obvious outside work being one new window , front door and a garage door. The drive is still a mess.


However, one a few doors away, same design and nicely presented, is only estimated at £140000. (None are actually for sale).


Other houses, which have sold recently are of a different larger design, so probably have upwardly influenced these way out estimates, as have sought after bungalows.

2013yearofthehouse

I would think the accuracy of the Zoopla estimate can vary greatly based on how many similar local houses have been sold and how recently?

A neighbour of ours sold their house last year and before putting it on the market had done some online research and were convinced they'd be looking at £450k or more (for example, the Zoopla estimate was £480k). They were rather disappointed when the estate agents were coming back with suggestions of £370-380k, so they put it up for sale at £385k, but it sold 6 months later for £370k. The zoopla estimate is now £378k (same for all houses in our road), so presumably far more accurate (for their house at least, some of the others have differences so will be worth more or less accordingly). The reason it was so far out before, was probably because it was the first house in our road to be sold in nearly 20 years! We're on a housing estate, but many of the adjacent road houses, that have been sold in last few years, are either terrace or semi detached (our road is all detached) and they are mostly on a through road, not a quiet cul-de-sac that we are.

Tiners

hazyjo wrote: »

You seem to be saying Zoopla is always under selling price. Overvalued my last house by £150k-ish. I've found it to be way out. Maybe because of the very different housing stock and desirability of one road compared to a very nearby road. Who knows. Obviously it's different for everyone, I'm only speaking for me. Some sellers are delusional, yes. But many houses have sold near me for way over their Zoopla valuations (over £100k difference with some).

No I'm not saying Zoopla is always under market value, just saying it's usually within 10-20% above or below market value... unlike most vendors (in my area at least) who seem to put their properties on for 40-50% (or even more) above market value based on other recent comparable sales.

hazyjo

Shows how far mine was out. It's just been upped by tens of thousands to within £20k of our asking price. So yes, now it is well within 10% of its value.

So to those saying it's reliable (even to within a certain extent) how is someone meant to know when it's priced in that bracket? Like I said, mine was over £100k out not very long ago. They've bumped at least £70-80k on top recently. IMO it makes it utterly unreliable.

kilby_007

Individual property valuations on zoopla can sometimes be miles off but they do seem to be improving. I generally use the area stats for a postcode e.g. HU12 and use that as a multiplier, so if the property sold for 100K 12 months ago and the last 12 months data for that area is +1% then the current value is £101,000. It still isn't an accurate measure though because who's to say the last person who bought that property didn't under or over pay by 5%? The only valuation that matters is the one on the survey. Everything else is a bit of a guessing game!