It's funny how established industries fight back with lawyers and the government against new upstarts. First it was the music industry and now it's real estate...
A good example is the complaint that was lodged against Zillow to the FTC alleging that the estimates on Zillow aren't accurate enough and in fact are misleading. I wish that instead of trying to get the FTC to beat on Zillow that realtors would go ahead and help make Zillow better.
The reality is that there is a huge demand for easy to access accurate information about real estate.
Getting the government to intervene and stop them from trying to accomplish this is a mistake. Having the government actually step in and further entrench the monopoly of the realtors would be an even bigger one.
Zillow's response to the controversy is here.
Zillow "Guess-Idiots" appear to rely on public tax records that in some cases haven't been updated in twenty-five years. The zestimator is a sketchy tool to rely on. I believe it's best to use a Professional Realtor when appraising property.
Posted by: Ron Asteak | August 10, 2007 at 08:29 PM