Zillow “Busted” in Arizona
Huh? Apparently the state of Arizona doesn’t want Zillow.com competing with its home appraisers:
Since its inception, the popular real estate appraisal website Zillow has been attacked by those in the realty profession, since it has the potential to break up the monopoly that brokers and agents have on real estate information. Now the state of Arizona has issued a cease & deist against the site, because it delivers home price estimates without having appraiser license in the state of Arizona. This is nothing more than a baldfaced attempt to protect members of a certain profession against a new service that might undercut their profits.
I’m not really a fan of Zillow; I don’t believe that their estimates can be trusted. In a free market, I think the appraisers win out–can you imagine a bank saying “oh don’t worry about the appraisal, we’ll just grab the Zestimate!” Well maybe on a government-guaranteed loan…
Still, this is an asinine use of state power and obviously designed to protect a few people with licenses vs. the millions of Arizonans who may purchase homes some day. What’s next? eBay outlawed for competing with local retailers? Gmail banned for competing with the local telephone companies?
Zillow’s as good as anything else. Nothing beats an appraisal by ME. Anyone buying or selling a home should learn about market conditions so that they know what the values are where they’re considering buying or selling. This means actually going out and pounding the pavement, walking around and going into houses. I can’t drive by a “For Sale” sign without calling to find out how much they want for it, and I’m often scanning real estate web sites that list house values.