The best way to determine your home's value is to speak to a Realtor that sells homes in the area where YOUR home is located. For example, if you want to know about homes for sale in New York, don't ask a Realtor from another state. As a matter of fact, if you've asked yourself, "What is my home worth?" and you are located in New York City, don't ask a #Realtor that focuses most of his/her business in Upstate New York, Buffalo or anywhere else in the State. I don't pretend to be an expert in real estate other than NYC #realestate. Being with Coldwell Banker, I can refer you to a number of experts anywhere in the Continental U.S. and abroad. That's what real estate experts do. What am I getting at?

We the experts laugh at Zestimates here in #NYC. I had a buyer show up at one of my properties and immediately tell me the property was overpriced, according to the "Zestimate." I smiled and explained that even Zillow admits that their estimates are off and he got offended. Well, after seeing him at 3 different open houses, he finally took my card and reached out to me for help. He told me all the homes he looked at in our area sold for prices that were not even close to the Zestimates. The Zestimate was always 20-30% off. Why? Because the Zestimate is put together by someone who doesn't know the local intricacies of our market. I'm a licensed Realtor that can practice in all of New York State, but I don't pretend to know ALL of New York State. I don't know what a house should sell for in Buffalo NY. Working with Realtors who are local to that area and have been successful for a number of years is less time consuming and a lot more accurate than Zillow.

We Realtors do a lot more than push a button on our MLS to determine the value of a home. We study our market, know the inventory (even the private inventory), speak with #sellers and #buyers on a daily basis, and know the inside and out of our local market. Are all Realtors that diligent? NO! So instead of doing homework on Zillow, why not do homework on your local Realtors and figure out which ones know the market that YOU are in. I Know New York City. In #Brooklyn, #Queens and #Manhattan (my areas of expertise), you must know what makes a house, condo or coop go for $100,000 more than another similar house, condo or coop on the same block. Zillow doesn't have the time it takes to do the amount of homework that I do before slapping a #price on a house. Zillow gives you a Zestimate, which is a GUESS! My agents and I don't guess. There's too much on the line for us to guess on our clients' biggest investment. I know that I will be sitting at the closing table with my client after selling his/her #home. I can't risk having any client speak badly about the level of service I provide, because bad news travels faster and further than good news. The Zillows of the world work on the old philosophy of "the numbers game." The more content on their website, the more they can convince the industry to spend advertising money on them, even if they are wrong 11.1% of the time.

I took the following from Zillow's website itself. You can read it for yourself @ http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracyNY.htm 

Zestimate accuracy:

New York, NY
Scored 2 Stars of 5
435.7K homes listed
335.7K homes with Zestimates
24.7% Zestimates were within 5% of the selling price (that's less than a 1/4) 

46.4% Zestimates were within 10% of the selling price (less than half)
68.7% Zestimates were within 20% of the selling price (not even 3/4)
11.1% That's the Median Error

When you sell a 2 family home in Glendale Queens for $675,000, you are looking at a potential for making a $74,000 error. That's what a REALTOR can save you from if you decide to chuck the Zestimate and go with a REAL estimate.

That's why we Realtors are still in business! We know what we are doing. 

You want to know what your home is worth in Brooklyn, Queens or Manhattan?
Goto: http://www.georgerosario.com/sellers.html

#Google My Name... "George L. Rosario"