I recently had a buyer who wanted to negotiate ~ $120K off the purchase price of a ~ $800K home because he found data on Zillow that showed the Huntsville, AL market had declined ~ 12.8% YOY (Year over Year). I did a bit of research for the client and showed him that the actual numbers for that neighborhood was 4.7% (95.3% List to Sales Ratio) and 3.4% (96.6% List to Sales Ratio) for the greater Madison, AL Submarket of $500K - $1 Mill.

This begs the question - how did Zillow.com get it so wrong? While there may be several components that led to the apparent inaccuracy, I think it really comes down to a lack of data. Until recently, most Huntsville & Madison, AL Realtors have not posted their listings on this site because they either had to manually load them or pay for the service. Now the majority of the listings are being transported via a 3rd party free service approved by the local MLS. So the site has not had all of the data, and they do not get access to all of the sold data, which makes it very difficult to provide accurate info for the consumer.

Sites like Zillow.com can be a great starting point for a consumer, but your Local Real Estate Expert will have better data to help you make your most important investment - your home.