What: March Madness! It’s not just basketball. Navigate the spring selling season with the von Trapp team!
When: Wednesday, 6:30 - 9 PM
Where: 156 Bistro at 156 St. Paul St.
Why: Because it's March and we're that much closer to spring .... right ???
Monday, March 7, 2011
The von Trapp Team takes the Madness out of March Madness!!
What: March Madness! It’s not just basketball. Navigate the spring selling season with the von Trapp team!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Zillow and the Magical Housing Math
Few industries have been transformed as drastically by the Internet and the information-sharing websites that followed as the Real Estate market. The incredible gains in productivity, increased marketing exposure for any given listing, and the access to prospective buyers and sellers by means of the Internet is truly “mind blowing” for realtors. Buyers are reveling in these same efficiencies, conveniently browsing properties thousands of miles away, in their jammies, at all hours of the night (I know this because I have the time stamped e-mails to prove it). The available listings include up to 24 photos, pertinent documents, virtual tours and good old-fashioned written descriptions of every house on the market, provided by the listing agent and uploaded through the local Real Estate Multiple Listing database.
Enter Zillow. This “Real Estate” website was a late entry into the internet mark
etplace and had to differentiate itself from the pack. Like most Real Estate websites, it pulls home listings and their visual and written descriptions from the listing databases. But Zillow added a twist. The site attempts to provide prospective buyers with a reasonable idea of a property’s true market value, dubbed their “Zestimate” for any given listing.
It is important to understand how Real Estate professionals arrive at a listing price by performing a Market Analysis prior to listing the property. It is a value driven by comparable sales in a general area and the current market conditions; it is a combination of an appraisal process driven by raw data and market knowledge derived from experience. It is part science and part savvy. Sellers avail themselves of this process when listing. Buyers have access to the same science and savvy when hiring a buyer’s agent.
A Zestimate is a value driven by data fed into a mathematical algorithm. This is well and good if you accept the following premise: all homes are created equal, differentiated only by square-footage and amenities. Location in the community, school system, views, proximity to workplace, charm, character, siteing on and quality of lot, local weather, location with respect to personal lifestyle, et cetera, are not factors in the equation. Zillow cannot, and thus does not, attribute a number to any of these qualities.
Granted, Zillow’s mathematical algorithms, may have their place in some Real Estate markets, but are not particularly applicable to Vermont. The algorithms may be more accurate when applied to an area with a homogenous housing stock, such as DC suburbs where condominium compounds multiplied like dandelions. In Vermont, however, the rate of growth is much slower, spans a longer period of time and includes a wide variety of housing within the same area. It is not unusual to have a modest double-wide home a mile down the road from a million dollar property. The lakeshore areas present an even greater challenge, as some homes are year-round, some seasonal cottages, and many on leased land. It is difficult to numerate the vastly different qualities to make them fit into a mathematical equation.
And most importantly, people react differently to the three-dimensional space that they call home. Each buyer attributes their own intrinsic value to a home, depending on how that space meets their personal and family needs. Zillow, let’s face it. If you take the humanity out of buying a home, what have you left?? Certainly not anything I want to help search for and buy.
But here is the bigger shame, or sham, if you will. Buyers accept these valuations as gospel, because—you guessed it—they read it on the internet. Prospective buyers embrace Zestimates as accurate, and avoid potentially attractive homes because Zillow believes that they are over-priced, only to find out later, in total disbelief, that the property sold for 95% of the asking price and appraised with a lender. Don’t be that buyer. Use Zillow as a resource to search and identify available properties; but ask a local realtor to complete a market analysis on your behalf to cross-check the Zestimate. A local established realtor with good testimonials knows more about your area and will steer you in the right direction.
Enter Zillow. This “Real Estate” website was a late entry into the internet mark
etplace and had to differentiate itself from the pack. Like most Real Estate websites, it pulls home listings and their visual and written descriptions from the listing databases. But Zillow added a twist. The site attempts to provide prospective buyers with a reasonable idea of a property’s true market value, dubbed their “Zestimate” for any given listing.It is important to understand how Real Estate professionals arrive at a listing price by performing a Market Analysis prior to listing the property. It is a value driven by comparable sales in a general area and the current market conditions; it is a combination of an appraisal process driven by raw data and market knowledge derived from experience. It is part science and part savvy. Sellers avail themselves of this process when listing. Buyers have access to the same science and savvy when hiring a buyer’s agent.
A Zestimate is a value driven by data fed into a mathematical algorithm. This is well and good if you accept the following premise: all homes are created equal, differentiated only by square-footage and amenities. Location in the community, school system, views, proximity to workplace, charm, character, siteing on and quality of lot, local weather, location with respect to personal lifestyle, et cetera, are not factors in the equation. Zillow cannot, and thus does not, attribute a number to any of these qualities.
Granted, Zillow’s mathematical algorithms, may have their place in some Real Estate markets, but are not particularly applicable to Vermont. The algorithms may be more accurate when applied to an area with a homogenous housing stock, such as DC suburbs where condominium compounds multiplied like dandelions. In Vermont, however, the rate of growth is much slower, spans a longer period of time and includes a wide variety of housing within the same area. It is not unusual to have a modest double-wide home a mile down the road from a million dollar property. The lakeshore areas present an even greater challenge, as some homes are year-round, some seasonal cottages, and many on leased land. It is difficult to numerate the vastly different qualities to make them fit into a mathematical equation.
And most importantly, people react differently to the three-dimensional space that they call home. Each buyer attributes their own intrinsic value to a home, depending on how that space meets their personal and family needs. Zillow, let’s face it. If you take the humanity out of buying a home, what have you left?? Certainly not anything I want to help search for and buy.
But here is the bigger shame, or sham, if you will. Buyers accept these valuations as gospel, because—you guessed it—they read it on the internet. Prospective buyers embrace Zestimates as accurate, and avoid potentially attractive homes because Zillow believes that they are over-priced, only to find out later, in total disbelief, that the property sold for 95% of the asking price and appraised with a lender. Don’t be that buyer. Use Zillow as a resource to search and identify available properties; but ask a local realtor to complete a market analysis on your behalf to cross-check the Zestimate. A local established realtor with good testimonials knows more about your area and will steer you in the right direction.
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