Real Estate at it's best

I have a question:
HI,
I have been monitoring my home on zillow. We have used this in the past to look for homes to buy. I am sure many other people do now.
I am concerned though, because now, we have our house listed in zillow. The valuation of our house is about $85 per square ft and the other houses in the neighborhood are over $100 per sq foot. Our houses were built by the same builder and at the same time. We have had our house on zillow, and the valuation keeps dropping.  Can you please explain why this is?  I am concerned about the validity of your valuations and am sure this is affecting the sale of our house. Because savvy buyers do look at your site. Our house seems overpriced according to your valuation and there is no "value" to our house. It appears that we are trying to rip people off. Our realtor says there is nothing she can do to help us on this site and that it is priced just right, esp when compared to recent sales.

Also, I know someone whose house a few miles away whose valuation has gone up about $80K in the last month. Is there some magic formula-using or special calculus to help some and not others.    
This does not make sense and is making it difficult for us to refinance and sell our home. It is not fair to those who are in hardships.


Dear Concerned Seller:

As an agent that advertises on Zillow I asked this same question to my Zillow rep just yesterday. The answer is Zillow looks at many different numbers in order to calculate the estimate of your home but it is not able to look at your actual home and see all the updates that you have done to it.

Your agent is able to update your listing on Zillow and add all of the updates to your home such as granite counters, hardwood floors, number of bedroom, school districts, or size of lot to change the estimate. Keep in mind though that buyers are smarter than you think and know what current house values are, they likely know you house is worth if it priced right.  Buyers are using sites like Zillow to see what is available on the market and see pictures of the inside of the house so make sure you have plenty of QUALITY pictures of your home available.   

Good luck in the sell of your home!