Today brings a game effort by David Gibbons of Zillow Blog to address Zillow.com’s disclosure/disclaimer issue. The problem for me is that the material he cites is at least one click deeper than where he puts is and two clicks deeper than where it should be. Even worse, the page he cites makes even more extravagant indefensible claims than does the Zillow.com home page.
This much, snipped together from David’s text
A Zestimate is really a starting point in figuring out the true value of a house. A Zestimate is not an appraisal.
would be perfectly adequate — if it were placed prominently on the Zillow.com home page and any page from which a Zestimate can be run. Of course, the extravagant claims would need a pruning, too…
But: This is incremental progress, movement in the right direction. Good on ya’, David!
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
RisingSunofNihon says:
So what’s the story behind the disclaimer? Were people taking those online estimates a bit too seriously? I didn’t realize this type of problem would come up. I mean, how could a site like that possibly give a *legitimate* estimate of a home’s value just from satellite photos and neighborhood data? Sure, they’d be in the ballpark, but not exactly close!
September 9, 2006 — 5:27 am
Greg Swann says:
> So what’s the story behind the disclaimer?
Zillow.com loudly proclaims its prowess while quietly admitting its limitations. People do treat it as gospel, even though, as you say, they should know better. Even with a disclaimer, many people will still behave like fools. But they will not have been fooled into doing so.
September 9, 2006 — 9:30 am