No one ever said the appraisal process was scientific or perfect. Certainly somebody from MIT, or Stanford, or the UW Math Department could create a system to pinpoint real estate value. Oh, it’s been tried. See your property assessment, or Zillow’s Zestimate, or the RPR Value. There are a multitude of these calculators out there. They all use quite disclaimers of their lack of dependability, but they whisper the disclaimer and shout their confidence.
A useful tool on the internet is the mortgage amortization calculators. They different than (WMHW) tools in that we expect accurate information. Accuracy doesn’t appear to be the goal of the WMHW tools we see. You do know the tool isn’t generating a product, right? You’re the product. All of these tools are shiny machines to attract your attention. Everyone know we will give away our valuable privacy for a peek at a cute cat or a bird that talks. Lead capture is the purpose of WMHW and other calculator programs. (You’re not even a number, you’re now a lead and you’re getting sold to who knows.) Oh, the program will put out a number for you. Some will give you a $90,000 range (the right number has gotta be in there somewhere). It’s not a dependable number and it comes with no evidence of support.
The widespread use of WMHW is concerning. These numbers do get used as starting point for home sellers and buyers, data for financial statements, as an idea to decide to refinance, dispute resolution, etc. I’d like to see them go away until someone builds something that works. Until then, there is a better way. Of course the appraiser is your only resource for a report to satisfy a lender. That appraisal may cost $500 and it’s likely to be worth the cost. If you don’t need a certified number, the Realtor® price opinion is still better than WMHW WAG. If the licensee, regardless of experience, is using a value adjustment process to arrive at an opinion, you can trust the number to be within 5.0% of what a typical buyer would pay to own your property at the moment. The key is the proper input of relevant data, and a calculator.
If you want to know a number worth knowing and you don’t want to pay, talk to a Realtor®. If you want to be sold to the real estate industry, play with the shiny machine.
