Numerous articles have been written in the last weeks about a new source of data and home valuation by CNN and others. They are saying that they will replace the Realtor the same way they replaced the travel agent. Are they missing something? When the computer figures out how to interrupt data and output actionable knowledge we will have to start listening to what they are saying. So far I have not seen a computer that can look out for someone’s best interests! Don’t take my word – look what others have had to say:

“When I saw a demo of the Zillow.com real estate service last month, it struck me as so obvious I wondered why no one had done it before,” Washington Post columnist Leslie Walker discloses.

“Then when Zillow launched on the Web last week, I realized why. Offering automated property valuations via the Internet turns out to be much harder than it seems – especially if you expect them to be accurate. But after running extensive tests on this ambitious national real estate service, I found it to be so inaccurate that it’s not useful. It’s hard to quibble with the company’s goal – “free, instant valuations and data for 60,000,000+ homes.” You type in any address, and in most cases Zillow will spit out a free estimate of the property’s market value. But appraisers questioned whether consumers will have any idea how off-base Zillow’s free valuations can be.

What scares me is the consumer who goes out there and makes a decision based on that data, said Richard Powers, president of the Appraisal Institute, the nation’s largest appraiser association with 21,000 members. Consumers really have no way to judge the accuracy of the estimate. That really is the problem.’ Powers said his board members have had mixed results on tests they’ve been running since Zillow’s public beta test went live. In some areas, we found the results were fairly accurate to the value of the home. In others, we found results that were at least 40 percent wrong.

Zillow president and co-founder Lloyd Frink said the free, advertising-supported site doesn’t aim to replace home appraisers or real estate agents. ‘It is meant as something to help buyers and sellers start a conversation.’ . . . Trouble is, because Zillow is loaded with dirty data in some places and missing key factoids in others, its Zestimates often miss the mark — sometimes so widely that I fear that anyone trying to buy or sell a home could get burned by relying on Zillow.

In my own random tests of dozens of local properties, I found about half of the estimates to be sharply off – more than 10 percent off the actual recent sales price or what someone knowledgeable about the property deemed its market value to be. Many were off by 20 percent or more. . . I don’t recommend making it a trusted bookmark.”

I just put a Million Dollar home under contract for a client. Had they used the figures supplied by this automated valuation system they could have lost $50,000 to $75,000. Nothing can replace first hand market knowledge. It pays to consult a professional REALTOR.