Between January 16, 2019, and June 14, 2019, we recorded 136 home sales in Pasco. The data below reflect all Pasco home sales that we tracked.
Median Error Rate
Median error rate is the primary metric that Zillow uses to gauge the accuracy of Zestimates. In late January 2019, Zillow said its median error rate nationwide is 4.5 percent. That means half of all Zestimates are within 4.5 percent of the actual sales price.
Zestimates in Pasco are more accurate than they are across the Tri-Cities as a whole, and even more accurate than in Seattle. Based on our research, the median error rate of Zestimates in Pasco is 2 percent. In other words, half of the Zestimates in Pasco are wrong by more than 2 percent of the actual selling price and half are wrong by less than 2 percent.
For comparison, our research shows the median Zestimate error rate across the whole Tri-Cities is 5.6 percent. Seattle’s median error rate is 2.2 percent and Portland’s is 1.5 percent, according to Zillow’s own tracking.
Are Pasco Zestimates Too High or Too Low?
In Pasco, Zestimates are usually higher than the actual sales price. Of our 136 homes tracked, the Zestimates of 81 homes (60%) were higher than the sales price. The Zestimates of 55 homes (40%) were lower than the actual sales price. This is more balanced than the Zestimates across the Tri-Cities as a whole.
Range of Zestimate Inaccuracies
On its website, Zillow measures how many Zestimates are more than 5, 10 and 20 percent wrong. We’ve done the same thing with our Pasco data.
5 Percent Wrong
19 percent of all Pasco Zestimates were off by 5 percent or more.
10 Percent Wrong
7 percent of all Pasco Zestimates were at least 10 percent off.
20 Percent Wrong
2 percent of all Pasco Zestimates were at least 20 percent off.
Zestimate Accuracy & Inaccuracy in Dollars
We can also look at the accuracy/inaccuracy of Zestimates in terms of how many dollars they were off when compared to the actual sales price.
- 1 home (0.7 percent) had a Zestimate that was at least $50,000 off.
- 1 home (0.7 percent) had a Zestimate that was at least $75,000 off.
- 0 homes had a Zestimate that was wrong by $100,000 or more.
On the flip side:
- 68 homes (50 percent) sold with a Zestimate that was within $5,000 of the sales price.
- 37 homes (27 percent) had a Zestimate that was within $2,500 of the sales price.
- 16 Pasco homes (12 percent) sold with a Zestimate that was within $1,000 of the sales price.
Most & Least Inaccurate Pasco Zestimates
Among the 126 Pasco home sales/Zestimates we recorded, the most egregiously wrong Zestimates were:
- A home sold in March with a Zestimate that was $78,240 less than the actual sales price — the most inaccurate Zestimate by dollar amount.
- The same home had the most inaccurate Zestimate by percent — 58 percent lower than the actual sales price.
The least inaccurate (or most accurate) Zestimate was a home that sold in April for just $37 more than the Zestimate.
Monthly Trends
The Zestimates for Pasco homes don’t show any clear trends. The percentage of Zestimates that were wrong by at least 5 percent dropped by about half between February and May, but Zestimates at least 10 percent wrong more than doubled.
(Note: For monthly trends, we’re not including January and June because we don’t have a full month of data for either.)
Navigation
- Zillow vs Reality: Introduction
- Zillow vs. Reality: Key Takeaways
- Zillow vs. Reality: All Tri-Cities Home Sales
- Zillow vs. Reality: Kennewick
- Zillow vs. Reality: Pasco (this page)
- Zillow vs. Reality: Richland
- Zillow vs. Reality: West Richland
- Zillow vs. Reality: Home Value Comparisons
- Our Methodology