Home owners - how's your value holding up

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Just for fun I went to www.zillow.com and put in my address. I almost wish I hadn't! If you put in the address, then pick "details" you can scroll down and find a graph of house values. Since late 2008 to today our value has dropped $32K.

Glad I'm not planning on going anywhere. Maybe things will pick up again in a year or two.

[Craig Laughlin]

We bought (God stole for us) a house about a year and a half ago. According to Zillow we have lost a lot of money but all they do is broad predications for areas. We are blessed because the area we live in is experiencing a building boom again. There are no less than 5 housing developments going on within three miles of my house. As a result of the increased demand I know that there are homes worth significantly less than mine which are selling for almost as much as we paid. I think it is possible that we have not lost anything. We are thankful. Boeing which is the largest employer by far (Microsoft being #2) has been hiring 100 people a week for a couple of months. Anyone want to move? Great church... (pastor is a little strange but the people are great!)

[Gina Stevenson]

Don' t have a home, so put in ma's address here. Strange thing, where it says: "Days on Zillow" the answer is "4." No, how about "4 seconds" (at that time), not "4 days."

Weird ... s'pose it's a default #, not wanting any thing to look really "new," as in "0" until it's been there 24 to be able to say "1 day?" You'd think they might at least start out with "1 day," if any # of days. Wonder what else they fudge about?

Didn't see anyplace to put details, as you'd mentioned, either. It just popped up the aerial view once the address was finished typing, and plopped in a $$ figure. Hmmm.

EDITED to add: Went back there, clicked on "details," and it showed a pic of the house next door; they're confused at Zillow. ;)

[Dennis M. Scott]

The industry's take on Zillow's recent drop is that their figures are computer generated, and based very heavily on recent sales, which right now are dynamically impacted by foreclosures. It's pretty common around here for Zillow's numbers to drop a couple hundred thousand dollars from just a few months ago. If you want to fix things, simply list your home for sale at what you want it to be worth. Zillow adjusts their numbers to listing price on individual listed properties. It won't get you that much on a sale, but it might make you feel a little bit better when you look it up.

[Dave McClung]

Just for fun I went to www.zillow.com (http://www.zillow.com) and put in my address. I almost wish I hadn't! If you put in the address, then pick "details" you can scroll down and find a graph of house values. Since late 2008 to today our value has dropped $32K.

Glad I'm not planning on going anywhere. Maybe things will pick up again in a year or two.

If I had to sell today, my home in Gig Harbor might sell for 1/2 of what it would have sold four years ago. It is doubtful that we could recover what we have invested in it. Fortunately, we are not planning to sell any time soon.

"High end/water front" property has really been hit hard due to foreclosures. One of my neighbors got so depressed over his financial situation that he took his own life. His home is now up for auction by the bank.

Just yesterday I was offered the opportunity to buy some property in Gig Harbor at less than half of its tax appraisal from two years ago.

Around here neither employment nor property values seem to be improving at all.

[David Parker]

Just a word of caution about Zillow. It is best used only for entertainment. I have never seen it present accurate numbers. Ever. Automated valuation systems just can't. Tax records are but one source of data for value and are frequently wrong.

Our home is now worth a bit more than twice what we paid in 1992. Yes, it's value ran up much higher in '04-'06, but that is only a problem if you borrow a bunch of cash against that high value. Which we didn't. Those that did are now in trouble.

[Jon Bemis]

Based on what other houses in our neighborhood are listed for, we've lost a good deal since we bought 3 years ago. Not planning on selling soon so that's no real worry.

[Kevin Rector]

I have very little faith in what zillow.com just told me based on what I have observed in my community. While I am sure that my home's value has not shot through the roof I am also sure that I will not lose any money on it when it is time to sell, regardless of what zillow.com seems to think.

[Jim Chabot]

If I had to sell today, my home in Gig Harbor might sell for 1/2 of what it would have sold four years ago. It is doubtful that we could recover what we have invested in it. Fortunately, we are not planning to sell any time soon.

"High end/water front" property has really been hit hard due to foreclosures. One of my neighbors got so depressed over his financial situation that he took his own life. His home is now up for auction by the bank.

Just yesterday I was offered the opportunity to buy some property in Gig Harbor at less than half of its tax appraisal from two years ago.

Around here neither employment nor property values seem to be improving at all.



Five years ago we bought a second home. We initially looked for something waterfront in the Sebago Lake region in Maine, then realized that the homes in this category had appreciated to a point where I felt that a profitable exit may be a long ways off. We then bought in Aroostook County, way up north where values have been low for many years. We don't anticipate much of a profit if we were to sell, but values up there have been stable throughout this downturn.

We are looking to buy something around Sebago Lake this year or next, the values there have dropped close to 50% in the last five years.

[Tinker Boyd]

Ours has gone up in value but not a lot according to Zillow. We live in a great neighborhood so houses rarely come up for sale, most people love it here and stay. We're 18 miles from downtown Houston but in a small community where everyone literally knows your name. Most live on a minimum of 1 acre and have horses. Everyone knows the cops by name and we often all help round up loose critters together. We have a potluck down at the fire station every month and most of the town shows up. When houses here sell, they fetch good money even in bad markets. We were only able to move in by buying a fixer-upper. If we ever fix it up, we should do well if we sell it. We really like it here.

[Glenn Messer]

I have a second home in Winston-Salem area. Today I asked my neighbor there (he is a mortgage broker) about dropping values. He indicated that his home had dropped 30% in the last 3 years. I really think it's not quite that bad, but no doubt we have had heavy depreciation. My house may have held more of its value as it is unique in some ways. It has large rooms, 2 fireplaces, sits on a good size lot and it's single story. NO stairs! I'm still reluctant to put it on the market, but if someone made the right offer ......

[Roy Richardson]

I wish I hadn't :(

The house we couldn't sell last year is now valued at 50% of what we refinanced it for in 2006.

so we keep renting it to someone to slow the bleeding.

[John Kennedy]

The bad news is it would sell for less than we paid for it.
The good news is the taxes went down.
The better news is that my next move will either be to Desert Lawn Mem. Park or 'the home'.
The other good news is when I'm gone it's paid off (as long as I keep paying the premiums).
We like it. We're staying.

[Shea Zellweger]

My parents' home, according to zillow, is worth about 50% more than it was at the peak of the housing bubble. They have it severely undervalued for that time, and it is severely undervalued now, but I wouldn't be surprised if the % increase is about right. Dad says there's a bit of a population influx, and it is a pretty nice home.
estimates for the road we live on are also drastically off. If I could develop a scheme to buy homes based on Zillow prices and sell them at market value, I'd get rich, and quick!

[Hal Paul]

I currently don't own a home, but I took a look at the two homes we've owned and have since sold. Our first house was in Georgia, we bought it for about 95K in 1997 and sold it in 2002 for 108K, our buyer sold it in 2009 for 145K, but now Zillow is valuing it at 115K. Our second house was in San Antonio. I don't remember how much we bought it for in 2003, but we sold it for 135K in 2007 and made a little money off of the transaction, since then the value has fluctuated between 135K and 145K. Zillow is currently estimating the value of that house at 135K.

[Nelson Bradford]

I can certainly speak from experience here.

We are seriously attempting to sell our home of nearly 19 years, downsizing, and moving to a condo. Because someone we thought we could trust recommended it, I posted our home on Zillow April 25 and as of this morning it's had 113 view/hits. So apparently someone is watching/looking. However, thus far no calls/emails/nothing.

If nothing happens soon, we'll list with a realtor.

We have our limits..we know how much net we need from the sale and simply cannot accept any offer below that.

We live in a very residential neighborhood, and our street, only one block long, is boxed in at both ends. Therefore we do not get a lot of traffic - only people already living in the neighborhood, etc.

I'm thinking about hiring the Goodyear blimp to "park" over our home.

Think that would work?

-neb