Zillow
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Zillow is an online real estate service company which launched its beta service in February 2006. It was founded by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, the founders of the Expedia travel company. Zillow was created to help people obtain home value estimates. However, in its initial stages, the site has been met with criticism from real estate agents who believe that the values given on some homes are sometimes overvalued or undervalued and not a true reflection of the true price of the home.
Features
Zillow allows users to see the value of millions of homes across the United States, not just those up for sale. Aside from giving value estimates of homes it also offers several unique features including value changes of each home in a given time frame (e.g. 1, 5, or 10 years) and aerial views of homes as well as the price of the surrounding homes in the area. It also provides basic data of a given home such as square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Users can also obtain current estimates of homes if there was a significant change made such as recently modeled kitchen. [1]
Criticisms
Much of the criticism surrounding the site comes from those who believe that buyers and sellers may not be given accurate data. For example, Houston provides the least accurate data on the site. [2] Moreover, large pockets of New York and Idaho are not served by Zillow as of yet. Real estate agents, who fear that their role may be diminished as more people rely on Zillow, state that the site does not give an accurate reflection and that other factors must be taken into consideration in purchasing or selling a home.
External link
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