.. because I learned Sunday night from my neighbor that his house is for sale. He had a U-haul in the back alley to cart some stuff away. The two dogs and the kitty kat that likes to sit on my fence (as in the picture) will go elsewhere while the house is staged (aww). Sure enough, this Monday morning the realtor planted the sign with a photographer in tow. We know that a house further down in our street sold at the end of this March for within 5% of what it was bought for in 2007 (see graph from Zillow.com*). So the zillow website, usually pretty accurate in its estimates, underestimated that house’s value by some 20% compared to what it sold for recently. So who knows? Since the combination of the house sold, its seller and its buyer is unique every time, time will tell if my neighbor can get a good price for his house as well.
*Zillow.com is a Seattle-based website started in 2007 that collects and displays sales prices and estimated valuations of homes throughout the USA. I edited out the price estimates on the right side of the graph since I just wanted to show the trend lines.
