Zillow vs. Reality: West Richland Zestimates®

Between January 16, 2019, and June 14, 2019, we recorded 36 home sales in West Richland. The data below reflect all West Richland 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 West Richland are more inaccurate than they are across the Tri-Cities as a whole, and worse than neighboring big cities like Seattle and Portland. Based on our research, the median error rate of Zestimates® in West Richland is 8.7 percent. In other words, half of the Zestimates® in West Richland are wrong by more than 8.7 percent of the actual selling price and half are wrong by less than 8.7 percent. This is the highest for the four cities that we tracked.

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 West Richland Zestimates® Too High or Too Low?

In West Richland, Zestimates® are usually higher than the actual sales price. Of our 36 homes tracked, the Zestimates® of 29 homes (81%) were higher than the sales price. The Zestimates® of 7 homes (19%) were lower than the actual sales price.

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 West Richland data.

5 Percent Wrong

58 percent of all West Richland Zestimates® were off by 5 percent or more.

10 Percent Wrong

28 percent of all West Richland Zestimates® were at least 10 percent off.

20 Percent Wrong

8 percent of all West Richland 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.

• 5 homes (14 percent) had a Zestimate® that was at least $50,000 off.
• 2 homes (6 percent) had a Zestimate® that was at least $75,000 off.
• 2 homes (6 percent) had a Zestimate® that was wrong by $100,000 or more.

On the flip side:

• 4 homes (11 percent) sold with a Zestimate® that was within $5,000 of the sales price.
• 2 homes (6 percent) had a Zestimate® that was within $2,500 of the sales price.
• No West Richland homes sold with a Zestimate® that was within $1,000 of the sales price.

Most & Least Inaccurate West Richland Zestimates®

Among the 36 West Richland home sales/Zestimates® we recorded, the most egregiously wrong Zestimates® were:

• A home sold with a Zestimate® that was $108,395 more than the actual sales price — the most inaccurate Zestimate® by dollar amount.
• A different West Richland home sold with a Zestimate® that was 392 percent higher than the actual sales price — the most inaccurate Zestimate® by percent.

The least inaccurate (or most accurate) Zestimate® was a home that sold for $2,252 less than the Zestimate®.

Monthly Trends

The percentage of West Richland Zestimates® that were wrong by at least 5 percent and at least 10 percent both rose between February and May, but due to the low amount of sales, we caution against drawing any trend-related conclusions.

(Note: For monthly trends, we’re not including January and June because we don’t have a full month of data for either.)

Navigation

1. Zillow vs Reality: Introduction
2. Zillow vs. Reality: Key Takeaways
3. Zillow vs. Reality: All Tri-Cities Zestimates®
4. Zillow vs. Reality: Kennewick Zestimates®
5. Zillow vs. Reality: Pasco Zestimates®
6. Zillow vs. Reality: Richland Zestimates®
7. Zillow vs. Reality: West Richland Zestimates® (this page)
8. Zillow vs. Reality: Home Value Comparisons
9. Our Methodology