patrick.net

What is the sq ft of the house, and what are the going price of similar houses in the neighborhood?
As for what they put in home repairs in the last 4 years, don't for get that remodeling has been a high retail mark up business for most the last 10 years.
What were the improvements, were they physical additions, or remodel and refurb jobs?
Most home improvement jobs are a lot cheaper now than 4 years ago.
You can get a marble counter now for 1,000 or so, they were at least 5 to 10K.
Labor is cheap now, especially construction labor.

What was the value of the house in in 1972 new, 1985 and 1999?

I would plot a line from three values and project what it would have been ignoring the bubble.
Then consider the work done in today's prices, and then consider the usage value from there.
What you spend is not always relate to the value it adds.

Fixing Curb appeal by adding a 5K landscape overhaul adds a lot more value, then spending 25K on a drop ceiling in the den with recessed lighting.

T'nounce has much more experience than I do and much more practical knowledge. I just wanted to offer what I've noticed on Zillow: they refer to public records and use their proprietary algorithms, but they are subject to the "garbage in garbage out" principle. For instance, my house is listed with 2 extra bedrooms (don't I WISH I had 5 bedrooms!!!) and two other houses on the street are listed with 5 beds, but one is the 5-bed plan and the other is a 4-bed home with a 1-bed mother-in-law unit out back. I think the values of imaginary bedrooms vs. a real bedroom vs. a possible rental unit should be very different, but we're all lumped in pretty much the same.

Interestingly, despite fairly uniform Zestimates of ~$250k in the neighborhood, a much nicer/newer/bigger house than mine has been sitting forlornly at $210k with no takers since January. (At least 4 homes are bank owned and just sitting vacant, not for sale, not rented, just sitting.) I'm inclined to believe Zillow needs a lot of improvement before you can really rely on it.

Answer to the original thread: they are total junk. Worthless generalized information that seems to make "experts" out of amateur real estate appraisers. A prime example that the internet, in many ways, is like junk fast food when it comes to knowledge.

I forgot to mention, house is about 1760 sq feet. It was a complete remodel. Floors, walls, lighting & fans, electrical, bathrooms, master bedroom, kitchen, new roof, HVAC, added an extra garage space. Originally the house was around 1450 sq/ft. They did a nice job on the remodel too, lots of nice details, new windows all the way around, etc. The yard needs a little work but it's not bad and it has automatic irrigation built in with good solid fences, etc. It was not a cheap remodel, that's for sure.

I don't really expect that the improvements increase the value that much. And this deal may fall through anyway, we're not sure yet but it would be nice to get a sense of what we should expect to offer on a house in the future. From what I can tell, the best way to do that is to go by what houses are selling for in the area right now. The problem is most of the houses that are selling are foreclosures, so it's hard to gauge exactly what the market will bear.

The impression I get is that, for the most part, the online estimators only give you a rough ballpark number only and even then they can be way off.

Nomograph says

RayAmerica says

the internet, in many ways, is like junk fast food when it comes to knowledge.

Kinda like AM talk radio. Care to SuperSize that, RayRay?
a4adam says

My wife and I bid on a short sale in Vacaville, CA.

Don’t waste your time on short sales. There are so many REO’s in that area that you should focus on them or regular, well priced sales.

That is the problem really. All the REOs we've looked at needed LOTS of work—more than we wanted to do. And in the area we want to buy, regular sales have been few and far between. The only houses we've seen that we liked were short sales. It wasn't by design that we chose a short sale. Regardless, this is the last short sale we bid on. I would rather continue to rent than bid on another short sale.