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Real Estate : The Zindex and Zestimates at Zillow Provide Nationwide Home Valuations at Estimated Market Value by Geographic Location

By Andis Kaulins

The Real Estate market is in a turbulent period, but modern online information helps to manage the situation. Take a look at the website Zillow.

Zillow provides nationwide maps and listings of real estate, including residential property valuations.

Zillow's Zestimate ® is their home valuation using Zillow's estimated market value. Note that this is not the same as an appraisal.

Zillow's Zindex ® is their home valuation index using the median Zestimate ® valuation - or middle point - for a given geographic area on a given day.

Zestimate and Zindex change every day.

For today, for example, July 23, 2008 (USA time), the Zindex (median Zestimate) is $219,180 for all of the United States, a figure which diverges greatly by State, region, city, and specific location. Today, the Zindex for the State of California, for example, is $412,726, or nearly twice the national Zindex. Showing the effects of the subprime mortgage scandal and the general downturn in the economy, the Zindex for California was over $500,000 only two years ago, so that home prices have plummeted, with California real estate dropping in value nearly 19.6% in the past year, as opposed to about a 6.6% drop for the country as a whole.

To see how your particular State ranks in this regard, see Real Estate by State.

Real Estate valuation is also a matter of specific location. If we look at today's Zindex for Sunnyvale, California, which includes the market created by Silicon Valley and Stanford University, the Zindex there is $850,500 and has increased 3.5% the past year. If you look at Beverly Hills (90210) in Southern California, the Zindex approaches $5 million.

Full post as published by LawPundit on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).