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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

> Unrelated but Zillow says at 7.5% interest rates that house is now $750k+, weird... makes no sense... counter-intuitive, except for how tight the supply/demand situation must be)

I highly doubt this estimate is true, outside of very specific locales. Always ignore Zillow/Redfin estimates, and just look at comparable sales in the recent past.

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If your algorithm worked better, don’t you think that would be the algorithm? You think those models don’t consider recent sales?

Apparently not in my area

Are you suggesting that the publicly traded, profit maximizing Zillow would suggest prices that are good for buyers rather than use their position in the market to control the price?

Zillow is a biased party, being a business that earns its income from home sales. They very well could publicize different figures than what they really think, although I think it is more likely that they simply do not have the ability to predict prices any better than most others.

Which is why they lost a ton of money in their home buying/selling division and shut it down.

that sounds illegal. if a platform has monopoly pricing power, especially on something like housing

afaik price fixing is only illegal when two parties conspire. If anyone knows about market manipulation regulation please correct me.

Zillow has zero pricing power. Hence they lost a ton of money and shut down that part of their business.

If you saw a $20 bill on the ground, you shouldn’t pick it up because someone else would have thought to do so already.

Spot on for Washington state real estate market. Pre early and post pandemic.

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