Ask The Money Coach

The popular Zillow.com and Trulia.com and a slew of other websites, have emerged over the years to reveal sale history of a given home, median averages for the neighborhood, to week-by-week price appreciation, or depreciation. These are fun sites for tracking sales history, but do not rely on the estimates from these sites to determine what you should list a home for or your starting point for an offer. One any given day, their numbers can fluctuate widely from each other, or even from themselves. One site, realestate.com, changed its estimate on one home three times in 5 hours!

A quarter million dollar range of $300,400 to $552,210 was found from the lowest to the highest estimate of a friend’s home, a 5 bedroom, 4 bath home in a Minneapolis suburb, that is currently on the market for $425,000 and last appraised by a certified appraiser in October 2008 for $450,000. Below are the median estimates for this home from four sites.

• Zillow.com – $492,000
• Cyberhomes.com – $417,287
• Realestate.com -$$375,500
• Eppraisal.com – $409,153

As you can see, the estimates vary quite a bit and wouldn’t be reliable enough to inform you as to what price you should make an offer. That’s where your agent can help you!