Internet home value estimators

I've been hearing alot lately about web tools that estimate the value of a home. There has been much discussion on real estate bulletin boards about how inaccurate these sites are. I thought that I would give it a try, so I went to the 3 sites that I know have these estimators: coldwellbanker.com, realtor.com and zillow.com and entered my home address. In my opinion, my house is worth somewhere in the vicinity of $410,000. The results I got are amazing.

The only site that actually called the results the homes value was coldwellbanker.com and they said that the value is between $350,173 and $495,586 and said their confidence level for this value was 5 on a scale of 1 - 10. Which means that they are only 50% confident that the value of my home is within this $150,000 range.

Realtor.com said that "public record or calculated estimates indicate that homes in your area are valued between $313,000 and $638,000", so they gave an range of about $325,000. In my opinion, a monkey pointing at numbers could do better (lol).

The only site that was honest was zillow.com. They said that they do not have enough data to give a "zestimate" but the tax assessor's value is $366,200."

So as you can see, these sites are laughable. But, even if they did a better job, which they might in other parts of the country where more data is available in public records, I don't understand why a seller would use them since most real estate agents will happily give an estimate of value and much more (market statistics, what improvements can be made to increase price, etc.) at no cost or obligation.

If you are thinking of selling a home in the Meadowlands area of New Jersey or even if you are just curious of your homes value, give me a call at 877-85-Glenn or e-mail me at RealEstateInfo@GlennElliot.com and I would be delighted to do a Market Analysis for you at no cost or obligation. All I need is about 10 minutes to inspect the house, so that I can give you accurate information.