Saturday, January 23, 2010

Trust your sources, or don't



A reader's comment on the last post about using Zillow for info on our market piqued my curiosity. I wondered whether the website that I long ago dismissed had gotten more accurate since it's arrival in 2005. Below are some random stats of recently sold south Cocoa Beach condos that I pulled from the site this morning. Readers can make their own decision on the relevance of the site as pertains to Cocoa Beach property values. The examples below would seem to infer that runaway appreciation is back and/or that some buyers are wildly overpaying. My take is that neither is true.

[The "Zestimate" is Zillow's estimate of a property's value.]

River Bend #403
Sold October 2009 __ $240,000
Zestimate Jan 2010 __$347,500

Windsong #101
Sold December 2009 ___$400,000
Zestimate Dec 2009 ____$273,000

Waters Edge #101
Sold November 2009 ___$245,000
Zestimate January 2010 _$333,500

River Villa #101
Sold August 2009 ____$268,000
Zestimate Aug 2009 __$182,000
______________________________
MLS Inventory January 23, 2010
Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral


Condominiums, all prices_____558

Condos over $500,000________75

Single family homes, all prices__127
Homes over $500,000__________48
______________________________

Many of the popular real estate sites on the internet do not have up to date information. If you'd like real time access to our MLS you can search all listed properties at brevardmls.com No need to put up with the lag time of the other secondary sites that can be as much as 30 days behind.

"
I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not."
______Kurt Cobain