Why Hasn't Zillow Been Euthanized Yet?

I get so irritated with this new HVCC bill. Basically, it's the bill that says that mortgage production staff can't contact the appraiser to order the appraisal. The beauty of the "old way" was that the consumer didn't have to order an appraisal, i.e., shell out $350 to kick the tires. No, in days of yore we could tell the appraiser that the consumer wants to refi. The consumer believes that the house is worth X dollars. Mr. Appraiser, do you think that the consumer is being reasonable? Invariably the appraiser would say, "

yes...that seems about right or no, your client's dreaming or is on crack.

But now....the appraiser just gets an order from some 3rd party ordering company. No questions permitted. Any questions that are asked are immediately referred to some government reporting agency. Needless to say, being in the business, I've tried to find a few ways around this ethically.

First, I'd go to a realtor. It's easy for me to tell the client about this new federal law that took place. I say ultimately if you want to refi, you'll pay for the appraisal, but if you want a free peak, then call Joyce (my top realtor) and ask her for a ballpark. She'll give you an idea, but invariably it's big brother that will make the final determination. If it's a slam dunk, then we won't worry about value, but if it's tight, we'll still have to go to that next level and get the appraisal.l

Secondly, I've tried to actually utilize Zillow. As far as I'm concerned, Zillow should be treated like a old broken down horse. It should be taken out to a field and shot. I've done a lot of price analyses and, quite frankly, Zillow is horrible....at least within my market. The home values that I get are generally about $60,000-$90,000 off of what the actuall appraisal comes in for. It's just horrible, really. I guess you can say that Zillow is accurate if you have an "add back" feature. In other words, you can take a general rule and take whatever Zillow offers you and add back $60,000 to whatever it's reporting.

The reason you can't do that is because sometimes, albeit rarely, I've seen it over price by some ridiculous amount. On one block it had 15-20 homes ranging from $500,000 to over $1,500,000 dollars. I know the area so well as I have friends that live there. That range does not exist. Fortunately, I have a realtor to communicate with.

Finally, this may be pushing the box here, but I'll call an appraiser. But I won't call an appraiser who would get the business. I'd call an appraiser who we use for different areas and ask him or her to give me an idea. The appraiser is still getting some of my business in the area that they live in but I'm prohibited to contact them for any deal that I'm working on. I just call an appraiser out of the area and say "I know you're not getting the business on this deal, but you do get business from my company. would you mind giving me an idea of value for 123 South Main Street, blah, blah, blah."

The first and third ideas work well. Zillow is, what I would call, the king of disinformation. I really don't know what the use is for Zillow. Curious as to your thoughts.