Today, I finally got a chance to look at the Washington Post weekend real estate section.  And there it was - again!  The latest article about Zillow.com illustrates perfectly why people who give out real estate advice really ought to be licensed.

The article ("Does Every Owner Have a Price?") talks about this seriously flawed web site’s most recent hare brained idea, "Make Me Move", where people can put up information on a house that isn’t really for sale, but could be had for some price the owner pulls out of thin air.  At least, we hope they pull it out of thin air .  God forbid they base their expectations of the value of their most important asset on the  "Zestimate" they can obtain by logging on and typing in their address.

One of the problems with "Make Me Move" is that, as the article points out, it invites abuse. You can post your house, or anyone else’s.  Say you have pesky neighbors who let their back yard go to weed and breed pit bulls.  You can post a "Make Me Move" for them.  And while they wouldn’t have to take any offers, you could certainly send them a message.

But this article buries the lead - that is that the "Zestimates", Zillow’s estimates of how much homes around the country are worth, are way, way off base.  Take the block that I live on, for example.

My friend, Judy bought her place in 2005 for $815,000.  But her "Zestimate" is only $769,717.  Her house was renovated from basement to attic in the 1990’s, and it still looks amazing.  But the real screw up is the house next door, with a "Zestimate" of $593,710.  That house has been wonderfully renovated, and would list somewhere in the $900’s if the owners did want to sell (which I really hope they don’t).

Then there are the two houses across the street.  The first sold in 2005 for $885,000 needing work.  The person who bought it paid too much, in my opinion.  But not that too much.  It’s "Zestimate" is $761,755.  The house next door to it, a true "Wow House", is Zested at $694,142, even though it’s amazingly renovated. It, too, would sell somewhere in the high $900 thousands.

Zillow uses as a comp for all of these houses, a recent sale of a house that needed a lot of work and that had a leaking underground oil storage tank that scared off buyers over a two year period of time until it finally sold.

And, by the way, houses in our nation’s capital have hardly lost value in the past couple of years.  While there hasn’t been the double digit and then some appreciation of the early 2000’s, we’ve had somewhere around 15% during that time.

Bottom line, trust the "Zestimate" at your peril.