Thanksgiving

It's that time of year when we celebrate and ponder those things for which we are thankful.  To be honest, most of us spend more time eating, drinking, and having good times with friends and family than we do "pondering".

Sometimes it takes a little perspective to make you realize just how thankful we should be.  Read this from a recent editorial in the Toronto Star:

Back in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni is taking the low road by letting a bill worm its way through parliament that declares war on homosexuals. Sponsored by government MP David Bahati, it would impose the death penalty on HIV-positive gays or lesbians who have sex, consign any other homosexuals to life in prison, and slap three-year jail terms on anyone who fails to report such "crimes."  Stephen Lewis, the Canadian who led UN AIDS efforts in Africa, rightly denounces the bill as "a twisted world of sexual paranoia" and "lunatic." Harper's government yesterday called it "vile and hateful."

Think about what your life would be like if this were the law where you live.

Zillow Accuracy - Buyer and Seller Beware

Prompted by a periodic e-mail we receive from Zillow about the "value" of our house (apparently its value has gone up $50K in 30 days -- really? in this market?), I took at look at Zillow's own statistics for how accurate their value estimates are.

In San Francisco more than 25% of properties that that sold had a selling price that was different than the Zillow estimate by more than 20%. Half of sold properties had Zillow estimates that were at least 10% different than the selling price.

In Marin county it's worse. 40% of properties that sell have Zillow estimates that are off by 20% or more.

Zillow is certainly a popular web site for home owners and would-be home owners who like playing the "I wonder what it's worth?" game and it has an appeal to those of us who are hooked on tracking stock market indexes. But as a serious valuation tool in our market, it's not at all useful. In fact it can actually get in the way of a realistic assessment of the value of a particular home but setting unrealistic expectations.

I find some disturbing parallels between the Zillow process and processes in use these days by mortgage lenders who try to create second appraisal opinions using similar tools. Ask any real estate agent with current experience and I'll bet he/she will be able to regale you with tales of deals gone bad because of a flawed appraisal process.