Top 4 Free Home Value Estimates to Check, Before Selling a Home
Updated 12/2024
Curious about your home’s value in a fluctuating Portland real estate market? I get it. Licensed since 2003, I’ve seen the ups and downs of Portland real estate pricing firsthand. To stay current, I offer home value articles and create greater Portland metro real estate monthly reports that help make sense of where things are now and where the market will go.
There are many online home value estimate websites that drive customer perception about what their home is worth, and some are quite popular. Still, none can estimate a home value with the accuracy of a licensed appraiser or experienced local seller’s agent.
If you shop online estimators, there are better and worse home value sites out there, each with different feature sets and levels of accuracy worth knowing. Here’s a look at four popular value estimating sites you’ll find on the market today and how we, as local Realtors, see them stacking up.
4. Redfin.com’s Home Value Estimate
Redfin.com Statistical Home Value Rating: D–
On Redfin.com’s home value estimate explanation page, they claim to be the most accurate on-market (listed for sale) estimator. As we’ve already explained in previous articles, this is no great trick. Basically, the online portal adjusts its estimate to closely align with the advertised for-sale price tag; simple but not helpful. Most homes are still sold by a Realtor in the U.S., a licensed professional who advises the homeowner on setting the list price. Redfin or any other online website taking credit for that is nonsensical.
Redfin.com says their off-market home value estimate has an off-market median error rate of 7.84%. Wow. That’s like shooting an arrow at a target and hitting the tree next to it instead. And this is higher than the 6.33% it touted in the summer of 2023, which is still far off target, so matters are only getting worse. This means that if your home was worth $500,000, this year’s Redfin average error range would be $539,350 to $460.650. The worst Realtor I know could get you in that same ballpark.
When previously reporting our grade in 2023, we gave it a D+, but an increasing price discrepancy is worthy of a grade cut.
Redfin.com Local Market Value Information: C
When looking up a home on Redfin.com, you will see their home value estimate as well as the median list price for that zip code, the average number of offers (this can only be accurate to their record of their agent’s involvement in the industry and should not be considered complete data, but more of a possibility), number of recently sold homes, and a median sale to list price average. Then Redfin.com gives an overall score based on their data on how competitive they believe that zip code to be.
3. Zillow.com’s Zestimate Home Value Estimate
Zillow’s Zestimate Statistical Home Value Rating: D
Zillow has created its own formula to determine each home’s value. Their Zestimate is likely the most famous and most used home value estimator online, but biggest doesn’t always mean best. Right now, Zestimates for unlisted homes have a median error of 7.49%, only slightly better than Redfin’s, but terrible overall. Not only is it not accurate, it is still less accurate than most. Zillow also has said that less than half of their Zestimates come within 5% of the sales price, so it is not a situation where a few bad guesses skew the numbers, instead generally the Zestimate is simply off, and by a lot. We are focusing on Zillow’s off market estimates because that is what the public uses to lookup value before a professional gets involved and provides a true value estimate.
Check out our full article to learn more about the accuracy of Zestimate.
Zillow.com Local Market Value Information: C
When you look up a home on Zillow, you can see the Zestimate home value, a current rent estimate for the property, and a neighborhood section that gives trends on neighborhood and zip code values. Like most major real estate portals, it also brings in some third-party data you can find elsewhere, like walk scores and school ratings.
2. Realtor.com Home Value Estimates
Realtor.com Statistical Home Value Rating: A+
The big national portals individually have their own proprietary ways of determining your home’s online value. Realtor.com’s home value tool pulls data from a few select real estate data vendors to give the consumer a free online home value. When visiting the link, after entering in your home address, but sure to look for the tab, “Market Value,” and click on that. Right now, Realtor.com uses three data sets:
Collateral Analytics compiles “decades of property data and transaction information for more than 95% of the U.S. housing stock” and combines that with tagged property types to create instant values. Collateral Analytics is now a part of Black Knight, Inc., a publicly traded, massive leading real estate data company that serves title companies, MLS systems, and mortgage lenders, which was acquired by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2023.
Quantarium applies AI smart learning to housing data sets. Their AI model claims it can determine the home’s condition through real data (likely through satellite and public photos) rather than by data-created assumptions (which they claim most other home value systems are doing).
Corelogic is a major industry player and has long provided home values to mortgage lenders to help them assess risk. CoreLogic is the chosen AVM provider of 8 of the top 10 U.S. mortgage lenders. The company holds a lot of patents on valuation modeling, holds billions of records, and covers 99% of the U.S. housing market.
We think Realtor.com is the best of the pack for statistical data. When you put your address in, you can see all three data sources plus a final number they are using to compile them.
We are giving Realtor.com’s current home value system a statistical value “A” for a few reasons. First, you can see what each different data vendor thinks your home is worth (but that is as far as the explanation goes). When checking your home value on Realtor.com, click the down arrow to see what each data provider has to say.
Second, the data is free. Realtor.com is purchasing data directly from real estate data companies and showing it to whoever wants to search for it at no cost. Realtor.com is paying a large bill to make this feature available.
Unlike Redfin.com and Zillow.com, Realtor.com doesn’t pretend it can become an expert real estate data company. Realtor.com knows that the three multi-million dollar real estate data companies it uses already exist and serve the industry (like backing mortgages and investment firms), and that their cutting-edge leading data can be purchased.
Realtor.com Local Market Value Information: C+
In addition to a home value estimate, Realtor.com’s page gives zipcode-specific real estate market statistics. It will tell you trends on price per sq. ft., rental rates, days on the market, and the number of active listings for sale.
1. Homebot
Homebot’s Statistical Home Value Rating: A
In my opinion, Realtor.com’s statistical home value rating is the best, but Homebot comes closest in my experience and also has many unique features most home sellers will find useful.
The Homebot system doesn’t have a national portal any user can visit and enter their address. Instead, Homebot is provided primarily through title companies and Realtors. (If you click this link and type in your address, you can get your Homebot report for free from us now.) If desired, this will provide you with a monthly digest of your home value (and other useful tools as explained below).
Homebot’s Home Value Unique Features Rating: A
Unlike the other national home value portals, Homebot will take into account the homeowner’s opinion of value and keep this adjustment in its system for long-term reporting. In addition to the home value estimate, Homebot will likely have information on what you currently owe on your loan, what your current equity is (and let you tweak this information), what your current interest rate is, and notify you of the best time to refinance and what a refi would mean for you today. Homebot will also let you add all your properties to one dashboard (if you own more than one).
Homebot’s Local Market Value Information: B
Homebot has comprehensive data based on your local zipcode, giving average home demographics (how many beds/baths / sq. ft.), days on the market, local appreciation, and more. It also offers a fun feature: it will give you an Airbnb nightly rate estimate for your home.
The bottom line is that the Homebot reports are the most user-friendly I’ve seen and help homeowners see the most important financial considerations for their home(s) in one place.
Get a Professional Estimate of Value – For Free
If you’re considering selling your home this year or next, I’d love to stop by and take a tour and meet you in person. Licensed since 2003, I have completed over 2,000 local home sales. If you are preparing for the market, I have a clear idea of what will bring you the best return on investment. I can also forecast your home value in the next few coming seasons and years.
Our commission rate of 1.7% is lower than average, but my team provides the highest level of service and professional media (photos, 3D, drone, and more). We pay extra to the top websites to feature our clients’ homes so that they sell faster and for more. Finally, we back it all up with a cancel-anytime policy for no charge.
Give us a call today at 503-714-1111 or chat with the bot on this site. We’d love to connect today!
