I just read an interesting article in Fortune Magazine. I find it interesting that I pay for this magazine, read it and then I go online and find out that I could read it for free... (that is an entire different blog).
The article that I was interested in can be found here http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/02/19/8400262/index.htm?postversion=2007020810
It is about the website called Zillow.com that claims to assist people with pricing their homes. As you read the article note that their margin of error is 10% nationwide (a little more than I am comfortable with). The article also shows that Iowa has "Zestimates" for between 1% and 19% and their accuracy in Iowa is not yet estimated. So let me sum up this site.
I loved the assistance that both buyers and sellers will find here. They hit it right on the head from choosing an agent to prepairing your home for sale. However, contrary to the title of the 'Fortune' article, buyers and sellers should use caution when finding the home prices posted for the Des Moines Area. All properties that I pulled up from this site were Assessed Values from the County Assessors. This number is used for tax purposes (budget based) and may not be reasonable for estimating the actual value of a home.
Another problem that I found was that not all of the Des Moines area is mapped yet. My own home was not mapped correctly because there is no data for my neighborhood.
The coolest thing that I found was that I could pull up a home in Polk County and see the tax valuations of all of it's neighborhoods on one screen! At least a person could see if their home is being assessed appropriately!
I will visit again, and maybe one day Iowa will have some good data.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment