Estimates on Zoopla

[Beetle76]

If you have bought or sold a house recently in the U.K., do you have any idea how close the agreed price was to the Zoopla estimated valuation?

When I was last looking a few years ago (2017-ish), in my area, it was apparent to me that the Zoopla estimates were always on the low side.

I assumed that this was because of a lack of comparable sales/data at the time. With the recent increased turnover of property, I was wondering if anyone had noticed it had become more accurate recently? Or is it still very much area dependent?

I have no idea how they are worked out but they are rarely accurate

I just looked up my house and it estimated just £2k above what I've recently accepted an offer for.

I think when Zoopla started they used to be pretty accurate when the market was quite flat.

I’ve sold a house recently and yes the estimate was accurate, but the valuation range was £60k! So quite easy to get it right..

Oh they are usually massively overestimated here (SW London)

There is a house on my street which was listed on Zoopla for 820,000 but I know it went to a bidding war and finally changed hands in May for 890000 (two bed terrace in London before anyone thinks we are talking about a country estate)

Zoopla is not accurate in our street, as it averages the street price, and the properties range from 5 bed down to 2 bed, so mine always shows at a much higher value than it is actually worth. I would never use it for a sensible valuation.

Well, our house estimate on Zoopla is £640-965k. 😬 We paid £820k last year. That’s a huge range.

It's completely wrong for my house ,(too low), but there are only 4 houses in my postcode and none have sold in the last 10 years except mine, which isn't on the land registry yet.

Zoopla puts the house we're buying as the most expensive house on the road for some reason. 35k more than we're paying for it.
It's an end terraced and different from all the others (added on later I'm assuming) but size wise they're the same.

Wildly inaccurate. Ours was overestimated by 1/6.

Range of over £120 000 on my house. They are all 3 bed semis on my road, and mine is down as a 2 bed (which it isn't) ....... so, no, not accurate in the slightest!

Zoopla massively overestimates the value my house.

Used to be very accurate. Wildly inaccurate now.

Way way too high for my street

They are miles off for us but the house is listed wrong. Says 4 bed when it's 5 and has missed off a bathroom. Next door is wrong as well, listed as 6 bed when it's 5 and they have a bathroom missing!

I'd imagine that in a street with fairly uniform houses and where several have changed hands in recent years, it's fairly accurate as it tracks general trends.

If you live in a village where only two houses have sold in the last five years and each one is different then it's unlikely to tell you much that is useful

So the estate agent has come back with a valuation that is exactly mid range of the Zoopla estimate (it was a £50k difference between bottom and top estimate)

I’m surprised at this as I thought Zoopla was way out (as in over estimating even at the bottom estimate).

What makes it really interesting is that I chose this agent specifically as he’s well known for being “sensible” in his valuations and also he valued my previous property low.

So now I don’t know what to think. Obviously I’ll be getting other agents in to get their valuations, even though I’ll definitely be using him to do the deal.

Just got to figure out what is a sensible price to market at. 🤯

I think Zoopla is probably more accurate on new houes, and where most houses on a road are very similar. They also don't automatically reflect work done since last sale, so if work has been done, as on a doer-upper they may be low, on a house that has had nothing done to it at all in 40 years since the last sale, they may be on the high side. You used to be able to input info to adjust for this, not sure if that's still the case. If someone has, it may or may not have been honest, of course...