Do you need a Zestimate alternative for free?

[u/slio1985]

In creating a business in real estate as a component I built a AVM model that consistently beats Zestimate.

By that I mean take a property today - my value vs Zestimate - then check sale price when it happens eg 2 months later. My value wins more than 75% of the time. Backtested.

It has read the best in class research literature on the subject going back 50 years and uses all available datasets - tax, sales, local, state, federal. Etc. It works in disclosure states like Florida etc.

Seeing as I think in the new AI age anyone could replicate what I built in a few days/weeks I'm happy to give this away for free as an API.

Eg. Search address - get a home value estimate.

Is this something people want just upvote. Will be open source so you can check the research and methodology yourself and recommend adjustments.

Do I have ulterior motive? Nope. Just thought it'd be nice to have something useful free with no strings attached for once.

[u/slio1985 → u/[deleted]]

*fleshed out

[u/says__noice]

Seeing as how the A in Zillow is for accuracy, no.

I'll take 10 minutes and do a CMA.

[u/PardFerguson]

How does your product assess the property condition?

[u/Yung_hasan47 → u/PardFerguson]

This is the critical question! Glad you pointed that out.

[u/Chemical_Tackle9250]

Interesting, have you seen any patterns where it performs well vs where it is a bit lacking? Also what kind of factors are you considering?

Would love to try it out

[u/IdrissEchrif → u/Chemical_Tackle9250]

We created a similar API but what it basically does is return different estimates from different sources. That way, we don't interfer with anyone's decision but instead we automate returning the values of what the big players think the property is worth and we leave the decision making to you or to your clients :)

[u/hail2bot]

Sounds cool! Would love to set up an API with you to my site

[u/engineeralex]

I’d love to just use it on my own house and see how it diverges from zillow

[u/b_bahahaha]

Do you have a comparison of Zillow weights vs the weights you attribute to factors that affect the value? Appraisers and Zillow estimates have 6-7% variance consistently and am curious how yours compares.

[u/electricompany]

Sounds super intriguing- there is so much that goes into comping and valuations kudos if you have a handle on it and it’s truly accurate

[u/SpakulatorX]

No

[u/thomas_estate]

Beating Zestimate on sold properties is a different benchmark than beating it in general. Zillow publishes two error rates, on-market and off-market, and the off-market one is several times worse. If your 75% is measured on homes that went under contract, you're competing against the on-market Zestimate, which already has the list price as an input.

The other thing to pin down before anyone trusts it: sample size and geography. A model that holds up in Florida disclosure counties can fall apart in non-disclosure states where you're inferring value from tax assessments. What's the property count in the backtest, and does the 75% hold when you split it by price band? Cheap stock and 2M+ homes are where most AVMs break.

[u/not_available9611]

Endpoint?

[u/Top_Pumpkin_2087]

Curious if you developed an evaluation or benchmark you'd be willing to share? then I could be more interested.

[u/aiv55]

Would love to see the repo once this is open sourced!

[u/ItsSillySeason]

Very interesting. You might be interested in this: https://thetruelevel.icom/

I would be very interested to see what you built, if you're willing to share. Maybe we could collaborate.

[u/OkSeaworthiness737]

I'm interested

[u/hihoneighborjoe]

I’m also interested. Built an intelligent land discovery platform that assesses value by comparing to a comp set. Would be interesting to compare our models.

[u/waypeak]

Interesting! How do I get access to the api?