As a follow up to a post I made earlier in the week on online home evaluations websites that was based on the article “Value judgments“, I decided to do a group comparison, using the websites listed in the article, on my condo and see how close each one was to one another. I took the six mentioned, Chase Bank, Cyberhomes, Eppraisal.com, RealEstate.com, Realtor.com, and Zillow. In addition, I included the average sales price of condos in my development over a 6 month (2 units) and 1 year (4 units) period. I came out with the following results:
Home Evaluation Comparison
A few things that jumped out at me: Both the 1 year and 6 month actual sales data were higher then all but two of the websites. That kind of surprised me as going into it I figured the websites would overvalue the house compared to actual sales data.
The realestate.com number was the middle point in a range. Unfortunately the range was about $30,000, which is not really helpful when you are talking about a $100,000 home. Even if I included the high range it still would have been the lowest estimate by far.
Overall the average price is inline with the $95,000 I have currently on our balance sheet. I think every few months it will be good to checkup and do another comparison to see if there has been any movement in the price. After doing the comparison I feel comfortable with the number and probably will not change it. Hopefully in the spring when real estate starts to pickup more units will be sold and the value will increase. Doing the comparison was fun but I would not, and do not, put much stock into the results as a “definite” on what my condo is worth.
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