Zillow

[Packard]

The Zillow real estate site allows you to look up any address and find information on that address.

I just “Zillowed” my home address.

They have an image of my house (and my current car on the driveway), so I know they are referring to the right home.

It lists the build date as 1964. It was actually built in 1953.

It lists the square footage as 2,836. I have the original builder’s plans and it is almost exactly 2,000 square feet.

It lists the acreage as .46. I went to the town hall when I bought the house and they show it as .75 acres.

They list the value of the house about $100,000.00 more than I believe it is worth.

My next door neighbor just sold his house, and I Zillowed his address and the image is not my neighbor’s house.


So, how useful is this data???

 

[peter halle]

It can be interesting and useful, although real estate agents will tell you that the estimated values can be wonky. Their view is that you will never know what you home is truly worth until you have a contract in hand. Right now the "values" for my two homes are probably fairly accurate.

 

[cred0021]

You can log into Zillow and edit the specs for your house if you want it to be accurate haha - no idea if the changes ever affect the value...

 

[luvmytoolz]

@Packard Is acre to square feet different in the US? By my calc it's around 32,000'ish square feet to .75 acres?

 

[Packard]

@Packard Is acre to square feet different in the US? By my calc it's around 32,000'ish square feet to .75 acres?

43,560 square feet to an acre. My property is on a steep slope and less than half is flat and level. The front of my house looks like a ranch house and the rear looks like a two story home. The land drops 8’ in a 20’ span. If you fell off my rear deck, you would fall 12’ and then tumble down another 15’. So not much of the 3/4 of an acre is usable. But the privacy is excellent.

 

[luvmytoolz]

43,560 square feet to an acre. My property is on a steep slope and less than half is flat and level. The front of my house looks like a ranch house and the rear looks like a two story home. The land drops 8’ in a 20’ span. If you fell off my rear deck, you would fall 12’ and then tumble down another 15’. So not much of the 3/4 of an acre is usable. But the privacy is excellent.

That's some decent sized block! I wouldn't mind an acre or three between me and the neighbours civilisation! ;-)

 

[Packard]

That's some decent sized block! I wouldn't mind an acre or three between me and the neighbours civilisation! ;-)

When Simon Properties, one of the largest shopping mall operators in the USA, purchased the land for the mall in Poughkeepsie, there was a lot of local opposition. To quell the loudest and most persistent, they agreed to a “100 yard buffer zone” (which they re-named a “nature preserve”) between their property and the nearest residential property. My property line abuts the “nature preserve”, so no neighbors, just the rear of the shopping mall about 300 yards distant and about 300 feet lower than my house.

In the winter, I can actually see the rear of the mall. In the other three seasons, foliage obscures that vision.

Zoning also has a “50 foot set back” from the road to the house (mine is 90 feet). And a 50 foot set back from the side of the house to your property line—so 100 feet between homes. Also no windows or doors facing the adjacent homes (though small, high-set windows are OK if they don’t allow viewing the adjacent home.

That change was a huge (and welcome) difference between where I now live and Nassau County (Long Island) where I used to live. Houses could be nearly touching each other—my old house was 20 feet from my neighbor’s.