Zillow Has New Competition

The people behind the Realty Thoughts blog have released a new beta product entitled eppraisal.com. It's a home valuation site that, like Zillow, allows you to get an estimate of the value of your home. Here is the range of services as stated in their blog:

• Estimated Home Value


• Sales Prices


• Sales Date


• Neighborhood Info


• Zoning


• Comparable homes


• Average sales prices


• Maps and Birds-eye View Images

I tested it on my home and the valuation was very close to Zillow's zestimate. The site was fast and easy to use. The business models, at least for now, are different. The eppraisal service is a lead generation site for Real Estate professionals. From the blog:

Real estate professionals can sign up to be a part of the eppraisal.com network at pro.eppraisal.com. This will allow them to leverage all of the power of eppraisal.com on their own website. Any users who register for an Eppraisal will be assigned to a specific real estate agent, who they can choose to work with if they like. We are launching this part of the application at NAR next week (Booth 2058) - interested real estate agents and brokers can stop by to get a special offer.

It will be interesting to see what kind of traction eppraisal can get with this model and how well it will be received. Let's just hope they don't have to go through a shakedown to get there. I'd be interested to know where the data comes from. I can think of a few places where AVM data can be obtained, and perhaps the owners of that data are not releasing their own version of Zillow/Eppraisal because they anticipated the reactions that have come from within the real estate industry and now from so called consumer advocates or civil rights groups. One thing is for sure, It's certainly becoming an interesting spectator sport.

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