Just Plain Zilly…
I helped a buyer write an offer last week. It was a strong offer on every aspect but price. I could understand how the seller might not think it was a fantastic offer price-wise. But the rational their agent gave me regarding their counter offer was nonsensical.
You see, the agent told me that Zillow priced the property at $XXX,XXX, so that supported the price. My response was “Excuse me? You’re using Zillow to justify the list price? This property has been for sale for TWO YEARS and you are using Zillow to say that it supports the list price? Do you have any MLS comps that support the price?” The agent continued to defend the Zillow price, even though I later found out the range on Zillow actually included the price my client offered. I also took a closer look at the comparison sales that Zillow used to run its algorithm to calculate the Zestimate. None of the comparison sales were anything that an appraiser would ever use. Essentially, junk data.
I am not a fan of Zillow’s Zestimates and I can write more about it in a future post. What blew my mind was that the listing agent actually felt this was good information.
How do I pull sales together when agents aren’t being logical and advise their clients in this way?