Posted on 05/08/2019 11:56:22 AM PDT by ladyjane
I know your are referring to a rental property that you have listed, I have no knowledge about this part of Zillow.
My Wife is a RE Broker/Owner here in Montana and we are a nondisclosure state — so any prices Zillow lists are guesses, not all states are nondisclosure (it means that the sale price is private and NOT available through the County Treasurer).
I mention this only for those of you whom are looking to buy in your state or another state call a Realtor(r) and find out if your/the next state is nondisclosure...
Realtor.com is a very good site and is aligned with the national MLS (Multiple Listing Service) which is regulated and very accurate. (I know folks hate Realtors and Lawyers... I come from a long line of defense attorneys - the kind of lawyers Doctors invite to their cocktail parties - and my Wife’s brokerage is dedicated to clients needs and she charges less than the going percentage).
Just added into this thread as an FYI...every state is different.
I swear by using FB to find renters. You can do a lot of background checking on potential renters by reading their home page and looking who their friends are.
“”You were lucky it was still available!””
Thanks, My first realtor I fired, I had asked if that house was still on the market. He said it was sold. I looked it up, it was still on the market, got another realtor to take me back and bought it on that 2nd visit.
I think he wanted to spend more of my money so that wasn’t the house for him.
I’ve used Craigslist in the past and had no problem. In fact, I’ve had great success in the past with Craigslist. I decided to try Zillow because some people at work said that a lot of people were now using Zillow and they sent the listing around to hotpads and Trulia.
Since you used Zillow in the past, have you ever seen your post listed as pending on your listing edit page. Does pending mean it’s waiting to be posted?
This.
I do the shopping at tax sales, auctions, and from fsbo signs on properties. Rarely do I see anything remotely desirable for my purposes, online.
As for selling online, Zillow isn't user friendly imo. I'd rather go with craigslist (free) or ebay (fee).
There are more eyeballs on Zillow, and I know plenty of people who find it agreeable for selling, but I just don't. Too many hoops to jump through, and you have to keep an eye on it or your photos go poof, maybe the entire listing too.
Besides, the quantity of viewers isn't always a benefit. I tend to target regions, so craigslist is preferred.
Still, I do this a lot and if you have a single property for rental, I'd recommend local resources -- newspapers, community-focused online groups, etc., even in a major city. The market consists largely of people already nearby.
“I’m first owner of it and bought new in 2006) was listed as having 16 bathrooms. It was that way for three or four years but has since been reduced to 4.5.”
Zillows property description of our home is accurate, but our neighbors home just across the street is listed as a duplex (it’s a single family home) with three bedrooms (correct) and three bathrooms (it has two). We property manage this home for the owners 10 months of the year...
The next home down the street is listed as three bedroom (it has five) and two bathrooms (it has three), again we property manage it as well year around.
These sites can be quirky, but Zillow has brought the value of our home reasonably close to market value - 18 months ago it was 1/3 of what it’s ‘estimate’ is...so they are doing better...
I forgot to mention something that you probably will disregard anyway, but I feel compelled to express. “Listing an apartment for rental.”
DON’T.
I just had lunch so I won’t go into the reasons. You can find them online by searching “landlord horror stories.”
I personally know people who have worse experiences than any I’ve read about online.
Office space for rent, that’s dandy. But if you have residential property, sell it like a fish in the noonday heat.
I used Zillow and Trulia all the time when I was helping my 2 kids look for their homes. They did too.
That's really weird. I've only seen "pending" on my listings that have gone under contract. I've not seen it in any situation where it's been listed as a rental. If you'd like, you could send me the address and I can check it on my end to see what shows up...
My sister in law sold her cottage on Zillow, by owner listing.
Not sure why they are not allowing you to list or others to see. Do you have legal papers you could fax as proof? Maybe that would help.
Most of her renters are "Mama's girls" who just need a little nudge out of the nest. They are attracted by her low room rate (which comes with rules) and usually discover they can actually get a job, be on their own and, after 6 to 18 months, move someplace else with a higher price tag a fewer rules. Yeah, I guess you could say that Sis sort of runs a halfway house. Her daughter (my niece) has the master bedroom and enforces the rules.
Inherited my current house. Been here for over twenty years. Used a realtor to handle the paperwork when I took township.
In my opinion, realtors earn their percentage. I'd never have managed during my time on active duty without their help.
“enforces the rules.”
If you treat kids like kids, they will act like kids.
I use Zillow both to sell houses and for rental houses - works great.
Zillow posts are automatically fed to Trulia.
Zillow has no credibility whatsoever. My house sits on 4 lots, but the reported value is based on the public data for only one of the lots (the one corresponding to the street address). Also, it’s lakefront, and the so-called “comps” they list usually include no lakefront property at all. They base them on sq footage and number of rooms. It’s a complete fraud. The value they show for my house is about 1/3 of what it should be, based on actual lakefront property sales in my neighborhood and the proper consideration of the entire property.
If you want plain-jane subdivision property, maybe its ok.
Guess what? One of the kids they served was driving home one night buzzed and plowed into and killed an innocent third party. They nearly lost their home when the family sued them.
My daughter, OTOH, waited until she was of legal age and then decided alcohol wasn't for her.
Used them both - and a good realtor - to find our condo.
“Pending” means that someone is making moves to purchase but they still show it until the deal is done “just in case” something keeps it from going through....
I noticed recently that Zillow has rather significantly lowered their estimated value of my home. Ok, no biggie—the market fluctuates, and the previous estimates they’d had over the last 8 months or so seemed rather high. But then I noticed that they had altered the historic value of the home as well as if those high estimates had never existed. The chart shows a smooth increase in value up to it’s current estimate, rather than a crest and decline. Seems sketchy to me.
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