How Accurate Is the Zillow Zestimate? The Truth Behind the Numbers | The Close

...when it comes to the Zestimate, there’s actually a fair amount of information out there to help us understand generally what it is and how it’s calculated. We’re going to demystify the Zestimate...

How Accurate Is a Zestimate? If you ask Zillow, it’s very accurate. In fact, Zillow boasts a “nationwide median error rate” for on-market homes of 2.4%. However, for off-market homes, the error rate is more than three times that rate, coming in at 7.49%.

Some savvy agents (and clients) have noticed that the Zestimate often changes once a property is listed to become much closer to, if not exactly, the new listing price. This means an on-market Zestimate benefits from the local, on-the-ground expertise of real estate agents (the ones who are actually pricing the properties) and has a much better chance of being on-target.

Zestimate is generally pretty good at getting within 20% of the market price, gets it within 10% a little more than half the time, and only gets it within 5% a third of the time. Roughly 20% of properties are off by 20% or more. This is real money that clients might be leaving on the table...