How accurate are "Zoopla" estimates??

[Ilikebeaver]

I live in a small 2 bed cottage.
My next door neighbour lives in a huge 6 bedroom £1million + house, and on my other side is a converted block of 1 & 2 bed apartments, so zoopla has a hard time getting close on ours

[Accelebrate]

I discovered that if you click on refine this estimate for a property on Zoopla and fill in the details the refined estimate is then public for everyone to see.

I let them know about the renovation work my place had recently and the value increased by 30k. I feel the current valuation is roughly what I'd expect to get if I sold it today, whilst I realise Zoopla estimates don't really mean anything I wouldn't want a website casting doubts about the price in a potential buyers mind.

[Lostprophet]

My house has gone up by £15k since I bought it in Feb '13. I simply because I moved in I think

[Munter]

Given nothing in my street has been sold for 5 years. That almost every other house in the immediate area is a terrace without a driveway/front garden, or 3 stories detached and with a garage, and it doesn't seem to understand part purchase and gives the 1/2 a house value as the sale price. I'm going to say....not very accurate. What does it have to go on? It's basically using the new build sale price from 9 years ago and extrapolating a price change based on properties of a very different type.

[okgo]

Says what I have bought is s now worth over 15% more than what I paid 3 months back.

[V8RX7]

scenario8 said:

Hilariously disasterously all over the place would be my (professional) opinion.

^^^This

It undervalues mine by circa £100k

I'm guessing that it uses the value that the house was last sold for as I bought mine cheaply but then spent a lot on it.

[JonRB]

V8RX7 said:

It undervalues mine by circa £100k

I'm guessing that it uses the value that the house was last sold for as I bought mine cheaply but then spent a lot on it.

In fairness though, an estimating algorithm is only as good as the data it has available. How is it meant to know that? If you asked an estate agent for a valuation they'd come round and *see* you had spent a lot on it.

[V8RX7]

JonRB said:

V8RX7 said:

It undervalues mine by circa £100k

I'm guessing that it uses the value that the house was last sold for as I bought mine cheaply but then spent a lot on it.

In fairness though, an estimating algorithm is only as good as the data it has available. How is it meant to know that? If you asked an estate agent for a valuation they'd come round and *see* you had spent a lot on it.

But that's the point... OP asked how good is it - answer - not very

I had one agent who clearly used a similar mathematic system of valuation (it is currently for sale) he said it was worth £325k based on what I'd paid for it.

When I pointed out that you couldn't get a comparable semi for that and mine's detached he got a bit flustered - needless to say I didn't appoint him.

[Andehh]

We paid £10k over the Zoopla estimate for our current house (5% out), and I sold my previous house for £20k more then Zoopla's estimate (10% out). Quids in either way!

[Honestherbert]

It is massively flawed. There are only 2 types of house in my street, both slightly different variations of 4 bed detached, and the range in value on zoopla is between £170-250k!!
In reality the all go on the market between £210-230k, and sell within £5k of either value.

[dasherdiablo1]

Zoopla prices are rubbish as it bases them on what was previously paid. It does not take into account any improvements. We looked at ours on there and it said it had gone up by 25k in 5years. We had a couple of estate agents in and the price they gave us was between £125k-150k over what we paid. Our neighbour has just sold their house which is almost identical to ours except ours is finished to a better standard and they achieved £125k more than we paid for ours.

So no zoopla are not to be relied on.

[scenario8]

In fairness to Zoopla, you could have taken up the option to supply them with additional data about the improvements you'd made to your property which would have significantly affected their guess calculation.

[dasherdiablo1]

scenario8 said:

In fairness to Zoopla, you could have taken up the option to supply them with additional data about the improvements you'd made to your property which would have significantly affected their guess calculation.

Tried that but you have to set up an account and log in to do it- I've tried this half a doesn't times and filled out loads of info - only for it to come up with an error page; load of rubbish

[sicourt]

Anybody tried this recently? A house or anything else is obviously only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but for anyone who has sold a property recently, was the Zoopla figure anywhere near your marketing value, or actual sold price?

[V8RX7]

sicourt said:

Anybody tried this recently? A house or anything else is obviously only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but for anyone who has sold a property recently, was the Zoopla figure anywhere near your marketing value, or actual sold price?

Yes - it's still rubbish.

The only times it works is if you have a row of similar homes and all have had similar amounts of work done or the home you're looking at was sold fairly recently and has had no further work done.

[TA14]

V8RX7 said:

sicourt said:

Anybody tried this recently? A house or anything else is obviously only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but for anyone who has sold a property recently, was the Zoopla figure anywhere near your marketing value, or actual sold price?

Yes - it's still rubbish.

The only times it works is if you have a row of similar homes and all have had similar amounts of work done or the home you're looking at was sold fairly recently and has had no further work done.

Yes, it's still going to be rubbish but they ought to be right a few more times than you state. If you said that they had +/- 50% accuracy then they'll get a lot wrong but the chances are that a few will be within 1% since there are millions of houses.

[okgo]

For my area advertised vs sold vs Zoopla margin for error is about 7%

[ClockworkCupcake]

V8RX7 said:

The only times it works is if you have a row of similar homes and all have had similar amounts of work done or the home you're looking at was sold fairly recently and has had no further work done.

It's a computer algorithm that extrapolates from available data based on market trends. What do you expect it to be able to do? Despatch Estate Agents on a regular basis to value individual properties?

Of course it is only accurate on similar homes.

[V8RX7]

ClockworkCupcake said:

V8RX7 said:

The only times it works is if you have a row of similar homes and all have had similar amounts of work done or the home you're looking at was sold fairly recently and has had no further work done.

It's a computer algorithm that extrapolates from available data based on market trends. What do you expect it to be able to do? Despatch Estate Agents on a regular basis to value individual properties?

Of course it is only accurate on similar homes.

That seems a long winded way of saying "I agree"

I know how it works - or doesn't.

[48k]

sicourt said:

Anybody tried this recently? A house or anything else is obviously only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but for anyone who has sold a property recently, was the Zoopla figure anywhere near your marketing value, or actual sold price?

Not selling just going through a remortgage and gave the mortgage company the midpoint of MousePrice and Zoopla as an estimated house value and they've agreed with it.