Interesting info about Zillow. I’ve never considered that they are encroaching on other companies, especially the MLS, for their “free” and quite often erroneous information.
I use Zillow every day.
They provide me a general idea of a properties value that is taken with a huge grain of salt.
I take phone calls from a hundred people a month that want to “Tell” me what their home is worth and I need some objective third party that will, at least, let me know if they are even in the same ballpark.
If they tell me their home is worth 500k and Zillow has them and the neighborhood at 300k?, I may send out a Realtor to get a true valuation.
More often than not, Zillow is fairly close.
I provide unsecured consumer loans based on Real Estate/Equity in one day, without having an official appraisal.
Even when Zillow is way off the properties real value I can make the loan work if there is sufficient equity.
Zillow provides me enough information (it doesn’t need to be exact) that allows me to continue the conversation and provide my families the funds they need.