The Cascade Team Logo

Hard lessons from the Zillow fiasco: Why Zillow and Redfin pricing is wrong, and how homebuyers and sellers can avoid the same mistake when pricing a property in 2023

Key Takeaways

  • The Redfin Estimate and the Zillow Zestimate calculate a home’s market value by using publicly available information and user-submitted data.
  • Both tools are often used by buyers when shopping for a home.
  • Redfin’s median error rate is 2.28% for on-market homes, while Zillow’s is 1.9%, according to the two companies as of this writing.
  • Neither home value estimator can or should replace a professional appraisal.

If you’ve ever wondered what you could get for your home, you probably pulled up the real estate listing site Zillow to check its Zestimate or…

2218 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

  •          Prices are dropping at the fastest rate in 5 years.
  •          Existing-home sales fell for the twelfth straight month in January, with year-over-year sales falling 37%, the biggest decline since 2010.
  •          Seattle posted the second-highest decrease in close-to-list price ratio of any metro area in the U.S. last month.
  •          Sellers are paying for rate buy-downs.
  •          Sellers are offering concessions.
  •          Inspection and other key contingencies are back in play.
  •          Many buyers are negotiating a combination of (Lower offering price, Seller Rate Buy-Downs, AND still including Inspection and other contingencies)

The housing market today remains in a hazy no man’s land, with neither buyer nor seller…

2773 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Today’s housing market has everyone wondering: Is it still a seller’s market, or has the power dynamic finally shifted in favor of buyers?

Try neither.

Uncertainty about the future of inflation, the economy, mortgage rates, and more have seized up the market—and wrenched power away from buyers and sellers alike.

“Today, real estate is ‘nobody’s market,'” notes Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale in her analysis of housing data. “The number of homeowners deciding to sell continues to lag, but inventory and time on market continue to climb, reflecting still-hesitant buyers.”

The real estate game is at a stalemate that shows no signs of budging anytime soon, with neither buyers nor sellers willing to make the first move.

Buyers have…

2066 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

What does selling your home have in common with online dating? Probably a whole lot more than you think.

Two-thirds of home buyers said they searched for more than three months before going under contract on a home, according to a new survey by the National Association of Home Builders. Buyers also complain that homes are getting too pricey. Forty-two percent of respondents said that the homes they wanted were too expensive for their budgets, which further delayed their search. Twenty-seven percent said that the increase in interest rates over the past 12 months had severely affected their home search parameters.

For Valentines: How Home Shopping Can Feel Like Dating

Are your home shoppers desperately trying to find “the one?” Finding the…

2013 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

One of the safest cities in the United States is in Western Washington, according to a report from moneygeek.com.

While the majority of the safest small cities are in the northeast, Sammamish, Washington, is 13th on the list.

A small city or town is defined as having between 30,000 to 100,000 residents.

According to the report, crime statistics were analyzed to rank the cost of crime in 660 small cities nationwide, in every state.

The report says while the cost of crime has gone down by 5% from 2020 to 2021, the cost of crime has gone up in larger cities by 6%.

The city of about 66,000 is located 21 miles east of Seattle. Located on the east bank of Lake Sammamish, the city is perched on a plateau. The city has one of the highest median…

3557 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

  •          U.S. weekly average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.09%
  •          The “new normal” for mortgage rates will likely be in the 5.5% to 6.5% range.
  •          While interest rates have tempered a bit, many buyers are moving forward to purchase with an intent to refinance once rates come down more.
  •          The unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, the lowest level since 1968.
  •          The spring real estate market is here early.

KIRKLAND, Washington (February 6, 2023) – Pending sales around Washington state reached the highest level since October and surged nearly 44% from December, according to the January report from Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Last month’s 5,776 mutually accepted offers were down about 9% from a…

1815 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

Mortgage Rates Just Hit a 4-Month Low, but Do Homebuyers Even Notice—or Care?

Recognize that media outlets and social media influencers are competing for scoops and eyeballs. As a result, their reports sometimes exaggerate issues, don’t tell the whole story, or get it wrong…. And the same thing can be said about the local housing market.

Mortgage rates are down again this week, which means things are looking up for homebuyers.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage ticked down 2 basis points to 6.13%, according to Freddie Mac, continuing a pattern of rates seesawing lower since topping 7% in the fall. In fact, mortgage rates are at their lowest levels since mid-September 2022.

Yet, while lower borrowing costs are a boon for…

2654 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

A strange topic for a blog post I know, but for the past month I have felt like I have been living in the Twilight Zone dealing with ever increasingly aggressive rabbits….

Blame the unusual weather patterns, pesticides, or sheer malicious intent; any and all reasons end with one undeniable fact: The rabbits in Sammamish are out of control and they are Hell-bent on taking one of us with them when they go…

On any given morning, just as the night gives way to the light of day you can see them waiting in the bushes just off the side of local neighborhood roads. Carefully you head down the street, eyes peeled, the radio playing lightly in the background….. And “BOOM!”

Another rabbit shoots out into the road, darting directly under your tires…

3140 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

NOW is ABSOLUTELY the best time!

We all know that home sellers have had the upper hand for several years, but those days are behind us, and though the market has slowed, there are still buyers out there. The difference now is that higher mortgage rates and lower affordability are limiting how much buyers can pay for a home.

Because of this, I expect listing prices to pull back further in the coming year, which will make accurate pricing more important than ever when selling a home. 

In Seattle I expect somewhere between 9 and 15% continued drop. (That’s around 1% per month but still much less than we saw in many cases last year.)

“As a side note remember we saw some areas literally increase by 100% in a single year during the pandemic.…

2522 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post

2022 Recap

2023 Predictions

National and Industry-Wide Headlines

What began as an extension of 2021’s high-flying real estate frenzy soon enough tumbled and fell to a near standstill by the Federal Reserve’s hiking of interest rates, rendering borrowing costs too pricy for most would-be homebuyers, who, no matter how hard they tried, couldn’t bend the numbers to their will. 

As rates rose, existing-home sales fell, builders pumped the brakes, price growth decelerated, and property sat on the sidelines far longer than forecasted. Real estate companies, meanwhile, braced for lean times after riding high through most of 2020 and 2021, with thousands of workers laid off and quarterly earnings reports showing losses — in some cases, to an…

2236 Views, 0 Comments

Read Full Post