Online valuations are a popular way to check how much your home is worth, but they have their limitations. With that in mind, we thought we would put some of the more popular ones to the test, so we found a few properties and compared their official valuations to a group of online valuations to see how far out they were.
Although the online estate agent Yopa carried out a similar piece of analysis in 2017, these online valuation tools are always updating their algorithm, and all of the data below is accurate as of June 2018.
We decided to select two properties, one in Wakefield and one in Plymouth. Although there are lots of shiny examples on Rightmove, including an absolutely stunning eight-bedroom detached house for a mere £1.5 million, we thought would go for something a little bit more realistic.
The Wakefield property is currently valued at £350,000.
The Plymouth property was recently sold at £145,000.
On Zoopla, the Wakefield property is valued at £226,000, which is £124,000 lower than the current valuation. This is a phenomenal difference, and it just highlights how unreliable some of these automated valuation systems are. However, there is very little data for the postcode regarding sold house prices, and that’s where the Zoopla system falls down. The confidence rating, a measure of how confident Zoopla believes the price is, is 52%.
The valuation for the Plymouth property, however, is a little more accurate at £135,000. The official range is £133,000 to £138,000, yet this property sold at £145,000. This is despite a 99.5% confidence rating from Zoopla. This is primarily because the property was sold for £132,000 a year ago, but renovations bumped up the value…
