As you guys know, I have been searching for an investment property to purchase and hold onto for rental income. In order to get an idea of the property value, I use a couple of the online home valuation services. On the current property I am considering, here are values from four of the online vendors. Note: I know these values are not set in stone but they do give me a ballpark figure.
- Housefront - Value Range: $87,000-$97,000 with an est value of $92k. I like that Housefront gives a letter grade "Confidence Level" for the given value. This valuation was given a grade of "B". I like that Housefront also lists the prior sales history.
- Eppraisal - Value Range: $78,653-$106,413 with an est value of $92,533. Eppraisal also gives not only the prior sale price but also the county, city and subdivision. One thing that I don't like is that the value ranges are so wide.
- Zillow - I don't like using Zillow as they do not have alot of values for my area. They only offer the county assessed value of $76,600.
- Cyberhomes - Value Range: $124,205-$158,707. I do not use this site but just threw it in just to get the values. I think the values are wayyy too high and do not represent the true value.
For my primary home, I feel the value is about $195,000. Here is what Housefront and Eppraisal list. I also included the county tax assessors value as of my last county tax appraisal.
- Eppraisal - Value Range: $189,000 - $209,000 with a est value of $199,000
- Housefront - Value Range: $168,674 - $228,206 with an est value of $198,440
- The county assessed value is $190,490.
My two favorite sites are http://www.housefront.com and http://www.eppraisal.com
Do you use the online valuation services to get an idea of your home value? What website do you use? How accurate are the values for your home?
I really like Trulia.
http://www.trulia.com/
They have lots of cool features like the one's you have listed for the other sites.
Zillow might not have great data on your area, but for your readers in more completely covered areas it can be surprisingly accurate. Check out this link for accuracy statistics:
http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracy.htm
@ bo - Thanks for mentioning Trulia. I forgot about that one.
@ personallyfinanced.com - Thanks for adding the Zillow coverage accuracy links.
I haven't heard of the others but I do use Zillow. I also look at the county assessed value and recent comps.
I like these sites for the tax data and recent sold histories more than the actual appraisals.
homeValence.com has a different approach - home appreciation monitoring with mapping tools; kind of a social real estate finance site.
http://www.homevalence.com