Like every other home seller in the New Orleans metro area, you went to Zillow and looked up your address. You were hoping that the Zestimate would tell you what your home is worth. The question lingers though, are Zestimates accurate in New Orleans?
NOPE.
Why Zestimates are wrong in New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole.
The state of Louisiana does not provide sold information publicly. While you can look on your assessor’s site or read real estate transfers in the paper – the state while not provide the sold price to websites like Zillow or Realtor.com.
What this means for you with inaccurate Zestimates
It means that Zestimates are based on what is listed for sale currently. These Zestimates do not factor in housing conditions, what houses actually sold for, closing cost assistance, and many other things.
Is your Zestimate completely wrong?
In New Orleans – I have seen many that are off by more than $100k.
How do I determine the value of my house?
First, hire an experienced New Orleans real estate agent. If you have truly unique property, hire an appraiser to get a better idea of the value.
Appraisers aren’t the end-all, be-all.
Let me be the first to tell you that we can get 5 appraisers to come out and look at your house. We will end up with 5 different values. Trust your top New Orleans real estate agent to help guide you in the pricing of your home after your appraisal.
Other ways Zillow is wrong
Zillow also “predicts” where the housing value will go in the next year. That’s a bold statement when they are not factoring in what is happening in each city individually. Considering they don’t have sold info and have no way to determine what each city is up to with business growth, etc., they likely shouldn’t make such predictions.
Zillow also offers info about school districts. However, I have met numerous people that trusted that info to find out the house they wanted was not in a particular school district.
Who can I trust?
Get a New Orleans real estate agent who actually knows what’s going on. Only hire a full-time agent and feel free to use our list of questions to ask your potential real estate agent.
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Price Per Square Foot: Why we don’t price your house that way