patrick.net

not sure what the source of the data is the number is about $600 less than my last tenant was paying.

They're trying to beat Patrick at his own game!

I drove around Maryland and DC today switching back and forth between hot pads, zillow, and real life. Neither has more than 50% or so of the available apartments. Hot pads had more places than zillow. I found that the rents were about right, although I didn't check up on that many. The two had different data sources. Neither one was a good substitute for driving around in an area you want to rent.

Redfin has to get off their incredibly lazy asses and make a droid app. Considering how much money they are making off of google maps, they ought to be on top of this.

YesYNot says

Redfin has to get off their incredibly lazy asses and make a droid app. Considering how much money they are making off of google maps, they ought to be on top of this.

Amen to that... I am waiting for the Droid app too!

permanent_marker says

YesYNot says

Redfin has to get off their incredibly lazy asses and make a droid app. Considering how much money they are making off of google maps, they ought to be on top of this.

Amen to that… I am waiting for the Droid app too!

It's on hold due to lack of resources. They're hiring developers, but at this point don't have enough resources to handle all the enhancements to their website and the iphone app and a brand new Android app as well. That's what they posted on their forums a couple of weeks ago.

Anyone has any opinion if Zillow's Zestimate for a property or rent is close to real value? I see quite many Zestimates are way off. Even two similar houses with similar features such as square footage, lot size and features in very close proximity, the Zestimate values are very different.

The rents look very accurate to me. Mine is about $25 too high but all in all I'm quite impressed. My last rental is also within $50.

I plugged in a few of my properties in Pasadena, CA and Glendale, CA and they are within $5.00 of what the current tenants are paying. Another is within $27.00 so they look pretty acurate from what I can see.

maybe you guys aren't charging enough in rent. Like I said my last two tenants were paying $600 more than the Zrentestimate.
But this is sort of an upscale area with not much rental inventory so people pay what they can afford.
It's still cheaper than buying.

toothfairy says

maybe you guys aren’t charging enough in rent. Like I said my last two tenants were paying $600 more than the Zrentestimate.

But this is sort of an upscale area with not much rental inventory so people pay what they can afford.

It’s still cheaper than buying.

That's like saying we are not paying enough for houses, because the Zestimate says it's work thousands more.

permanent_marker says

Amen to that… I am waiting for the Droid app too!

I am seeing the future.. Social Network = Borg Collective.

Zillow doesn't even show my place as a rental.

I've tried to figure out Zillow something like ten times and every time I launch the app or load the URL, I just end up confused. Either their data does not represent what's happening, or I'm lacking a lot of information to understand how they calculate/find their figures.

And some landlords charge lower rent to keep in good tenants or to attract a large enough pool of applicants to make it easier to find a good one.

I just checked out the rental next door, and they have a zestimate of 3,700 when the rent is $3k.