Can you trust Zoopa estimates?

[housemad]

Just wonder if anyone use Zoopa estimates of the properties they want to buy? Does Zoopa provides realistic estimates in your opinion?

I think they're useful to look at, but not conclusive, no. They don't take into account reposessions, sales at auctions, etc, so can be overly high I think.

dunno across the board. I just did an estimate for my property, bought last year. I filled in all the details. Squae footage, size of garden etc, accurately. It used last paid price (ours). The estimate was almost exactly the same as what 2 local estate agent valued (range of all 3 was within 5K).

I ve found their historical info re sold houses is useful.

No.

Not remotely - because the valuation is based almost entirely on the last known sale price adjusted by an annual +/- percentage change in house prices.

You will get a very similar result to Zoopla if you use calculators like the Nationwide house price calculator.

To see the huge great flaw for yourself - find out what your house is valued at now or guess if you have no idea.

Using the Nationwide calculator which asks for the purchase price at a certain date and then calculates today's valuation - you will see that if you change the purchase date of your property - the valuation comes out differently almost every time.

Which, if you think about it logically, is just not possible.

After all, how can any house have a different valuation today simply because it was purchased at a different time in the past?

It's something to do wiith the investment value calculation method they use - it doesn't always work.

Give it a whirl:

www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/calculator/calculator.htm

so you know when you remortgae and they do an online valuation - what tdo they use? is there a more accurate tool?

No!

No. When my parents were divorcing my dad brought zoopla estimates of the values of his properties. The judge told him off for time wasting and sent him away to get proper valuations.

Not at all. A house 2 doors down from us is valued at £50,000 grand more than ours. It has an identical orginal footprint to ours but we have a large two storey extension. 'Tis nonsense.

NO.
Because the data comes from the Land Registry data that has a HUGE list of exclusions so is currently significantly overvaluing average house prices.

My house was valued more then my next door neighours by 30k despite them having an extra bedroom and double the garden size- definitely not accurate!

no, I have just looked mine up. It is based on what we bought it for 3 years ago, we got it for less than we should have as we had a cash buyer so no chain below us.

Also we have converted a double garage into a playroom with a store at the back.

I know exactly what my mortgage company thinks it is worth because when we changed to a fixed rate they sent a surveyor out.

So zoopla thinks my house is worth less than it is.

Absolutely not.

i spoke to an estate agent about this and he said you can trust them to a point but as an owner if you update your details your value will change. therefore if owners have not added any work/additions/renovation etc they will not be part of the estimate so generally work well as a rough guide.

No, I bought my house from a family member for about 30k less than the going rate. Now 4 years later its saying our house is worth 25k less than the identical semi that we are attached to!

We have renovated, new windows, flooring throughout, new internal doors, decorated, fitted bedrooms etc

It just taken an average of the house price increases/decreases and applied them accross the board to the last known sale price, so doesn't actually give an accurate figure if you bought below market value in the first place or have done any improvements.

I am an ea baby and I disagree with that completely.

Definitely not. The estimates for my street are hilariously bad.

Not even vaguely. The two places I sold recently - the zoopla estimate for one was 50k above the sale price, the second zoopla was 75k above the sale price!

The zoopla estimate for the house we bought was about £100k under the price we paid. The previous owners got it for a tiny amount in 2004 (it must've been a wreck) and the estimate was based entirely on that. It ignored any work done to it. The zoopla estimate for much smaller houses in the same street is quite a lot higher than the price we paid for this one, and if the owners of them tried to sell they'd get a lot less than the zoopla estimate.

They may as well have drawn numbers out of a bag randomly because the system they use is totally crap.

We sold ours 2.5 years ago. Zoopla said £250. We eventually (after 2 months) got over £300. Ignore this part of Zoopla. It's worse than useless. Historical house prices is good though (they bought out houseprices.co.uk).

Slight hijack - What happens when you remortgage? This will be happening for me soon and I haven't done it before. We will use a broker L&C) as they were great with finding original mortgage. What happens once you make the application to new mortgage company?

They will get a surveyor to value who will look at recent sold prices, the condition, any needed work and any improvements you've made.

I'd imagine they charge you several hundred quid and have a surveyor look at the house on google maps do a valuation.

I bought my house off family who sold it too me for much less than they could have got otherwise.

I looked a Zoopla recently and they estimate a low price, now I've read this I'm assuming the fact I paid under has skewed the stats?