Why You Need to Be Careful with Zillow

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Zillow is a giant in the real estate industry. They aggregate tons and tons of data, and a lot of it is actually quite useful to the average consumer, but you need to take some of it with a grain of salt.

One thing in particular that you need to watch out for is the Zestimate, which is Zillow's valuation of your home. How accurate is that value that Zillow places on your home?

On average, these Zestimates are off by 5-15%. A 15% difference on a $300,000 home is a matter of $45,000! It has also been stated that nearly every home value on the website is off by at least 5% or more. This is a huge margin of error.

These estimates work well with communities that have similar homes, but with mixed communities like we have here in Cedar Valley, it's hard for Zillow's algorithms to place accurate values on homes. Some homes may sit next to a highway and they'll be valued the same as a home next to a cornfield with a great view.

I don't recommend anyone to use the Zillow Zestimate as a true market value. Always talk to a Realtor when you're pricing a home or putting an offer on a home.

If you truly want to know the value of your Cedar Valley home, please don't hesitate to contact me. I would be very happy to assist you!

No Credit vs Bad Credit

Selling a Cedar Valley home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Cedar Valley home? Search all homes for sale

I occasionally get people in my office who want to buy a home, but they have no credit history whatsoever. This leads me to a good question: is it better to have bad credit or no credit?

From the perspective of a lender, it is riskier to lend to someone with no credit history at all than someone with bad credit. They have no way of telling if you are good at making payments or not. When you have bad credit, we can fix it. But if you have no credit at all, there is no way of telling what kind of borrower you might be.

A lot of the time, no credit ends up getting you no mortgage. This is why it's not a terrible idea to start building credit now. You can buy a credit card and put a very small balance on it, and pay it off month to month to build a little bit of consistent credit history.

It's surprising to most people, but it is better to have bad credit than no credit at all. If you want to buy a home in the future, I highly suggest that you begin to build credit now.

If you need help buying or selling in Cedar Valley, please don't hesitate to contact me!