Why Should You Know the Zestimate?
Zillow has a great tool for home values called the Zestimate. It’s an algorithm that calculates what your home is worth based on basic information.
However, you might be browsing through town with luxurious homes that sell for $300 per square foot and sub-par homes that sell for $50 per square foot. In this case, Zillow smashes all these prices together and spits out an average price from tax records. The Zestimate is an average for a town and area. It gives you an idea of what your home should be selling for.
We’ve actually taken that tool to the next level. By pulling the average price per square footage in any town, we can examine homes priced 15% above or below that average and add deal tags to those bargain listings on our home search tool. This deal tag pulls up all the properties in an easy to use format.
Although Zillow is a great place to start, it’s not ideal for accurate home values. An appraisal is the best way to acquire a fair price for a property. When you’re serious about buying a home, the appraisal should guide you.
Hopefully you found this helpful, as many people have asked me about this Zestimate. If you have any questions about real estate in Northwest Chicago, please feel free to call me or email me.