Claim Your Home - It’s Yours!
By: Rich Barton, CEO | October 11, 2006
Now I know how McDonald’s felt whenever they updated their marquee from “60 billion served” to “70 billion served.” Evidently, they stopped keeping track of how many burgers were sold a while ago, but it became one of those stats that stuck in your brain — even as a 12-year-old.
So, what does McDonald’s have to do with Zillow? Nothing, really, except for the fact that we just crossed a magic number threshold that we think is worth sharing. A few weeks ago we announced the ability for homeowners to claim their homes on Zillow.com and to update facts or post their own estimate.
Since then, more than 100,000 homeowners have taken us up on the offer. (103,000 as of this morning). OK, it’s not a billion hamburgers, but yes, we are pleasantly surprised to see how eager people are to claim their homes. Not so surprising is that California (23,500) tops the list, followed by Florida (13,000) and Washington state (12,000). Homes have been claimed in 46 states and the District of Columbia.
Most homes claimed by owners are single family residences (89%), and the average claimed home value is $477,581 (quite a bit above the current national Zindex of $269,445 - call it the California effect).
To claim your home, just go to your home details page, then under “Owner Tools” click on “Claim your home.” Or, read more about how the claiming process works. It’s your home… go ahead and claim it!
Update 1/24/2008: As of January 2008, claiming your home and editing your home facts will now have an impact on your Zestimate.
- Stumble it!
- Categories: Zestimate, Zillow
Comments
8 Comments so far
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to the Zillow Blog feed or get updates via e-mail
teresa boardman on October 11, 2006 3:37 pm
A question I always wanted to ask, how come my zestimate does not change when I about double the square footage? —- size really does matter when calculating home value, or at least it used to berfore Zillow.
David G from Zillow.com on October 11, 2006 6:02 pm
Teresa -
Size does matter (to Zestimates) and for most houses, the estimate changes significantly with changes to sq.ft. For some houses however, the amount the estimate can grow by has been limited - and won’t increase until you pick new comps. Please proceeed to the 4th step in creating the Estimate, pick a few good comparable homes - and you should see the Zestimate change.
This behavior is a known problem which we plan to fix in the next improvement to the algorithm and estmate tool. Thanks for your parience and your feedback.
teresa boardman on October 12, 2006 5:04 am
Thanks. because I am a REALTOR and have really great software it is much easier for me to do a CMA on my own home using the MLS. I hope the average consumer can pick comps from what information in Zillow that is not always acurate.
Gary on October 14, 2006 7:00 am
I went to update my home’s information regarding square footage, # of bedrooms/baths, etc. Since the original info was off substantially the correct information nearly doubled the size. The zestimate dropped more than $33,000 by doubling the size of my home. These weren’t additions, just the correct numbers for the original home.
David G from Zillow.com on October 14, 2006 7:23 pm
Gary -
If you pick a few good comparable houses in the last step, the estimate should correct itself. This is a similar problem to Teresa’s (above). I’m sorry you encountered this bug — We’re going to fix it. Thanks for the feedback.
David
Ron Hager on October 16, 2006 8:37 pm
I live in a rural area and my house is not listed, so I can’t claim it. Why not let me add it?
David G from Zillow.com on October 17, 2006 8:31 am
Ron -
That is a great idea and we’re actually developing the first iteration of that functionality. Without getting into the details, it’s a very difficult problem to solve, but it looks like we’ll have taken the first step to doing so by year’s end.
Judy Scott on August 11, 2007 8:20 pm
I own a one half acre commercial zoned lot in Palmdale, California. It has a small home on it. But the value is in the land. The lot is a corner lot one block from Palmdale Boulevard. There is a lot of commercial development nearby. I believe the value of the home and lot is approximately $350,000.
I would like to trade it for a home of comparable value in Florida or Georgia.