Make an Unsolicited Offer™

August 23, 2006 8:55 AM

Would you love to own that house down the block, but are inconvenienced by the fact that it's not for sale? Don't fret. "Every Home in America is Up for Sale!" Of course, one should always be wary of unsolicited offers.
posted by Blue Buddha (14 comments total)

The data looks similar to zillow.com. Also, some weird scripts are running on that reply site. It's giving firefox hell.
posted by mattbucher at 9:10 AM on August 23, 2006

Yep - what mattbucher said - this site is shite.
posted by OhPuhLeez at 9:14 AM on August 23, 2006

Would you love to own that house down the block, but are inconvenienced by the fact that it's not for sale?

Indeed.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:38 AM on August 23, 2006

It's giving my house $120,000 over the zillow estimate. I really hope someone tries to by my place with this site, I could use the extra money.
posted by paxton at 9:38 AM on August 23, 2006

page asked me to load some kind of .exe file. flagged.
posted by lester at 10:00 AM on August 23, 2006

"page asked me to load some kind of .exe file. flagged."

Flagged comment, then commented to say so. Flagged.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:05 AM on August 23, 2006

flagged comment then commented to say that comment that said so flagged.
posted by lester at 10:10 AM on August 23, 2006

Agree that site is shite, but estimate on my house was far more accurate than Zillow.
posted by dontoine at 10:16 AM on August 23, 2006

To be honest, I think every house on my block is actually for sale. There is an epidemic of for sale signs. Don't these people realize they missed the boat?
posted by smackfu at 10:36 AM on August 23, 2006

Haaaaa haaaaa haaaaa, the house that I live in is valued at $830,000! That's so funny. It's in terrible shape and would need a tear-down and re-build before anyone could move in. What a joke! Basically it's a slum lord's group housing nightmare. So glad I'm moving at the end of the month. What a joke.
posted by mk1gti at 10:44 AM on August 23, 2006

The problem with sites like this and with Zillo is that...well...the valuations tend to be off, that, or they have a huge range - such as my modest abode, which has a "Zestimate" of between $117,500 - $189,750

Realistically, its market value is around $135,000 based on a true appraisal.

Having said that, I think that these sites could be very useful tools in the same vein as an edmunds.com has been for vehicle purchases. The only thing these sites are bad at providing is a true market value based on supply+demand for a particular product (for edmunds, they give you good information on the invoice and retail pricing, but don't know if, for example, silver cars are in high demand and low supply, etc.)
posted by tgrundke at 12:08 PM on August 23, 2006

Is there a house in your neighborhood that you love? Ask the owners if it is for sale. You might be surprised. This is actually not a bad technique for buying a house, especially if it doesn't matter if you wait a few years. Rather than use this website, which I think is kind of cool, I would just knock on the door and establish a personal relationship. I know several people who have done this and some others who have been approached. The surprising thing is it seems to work more often than one would think.
posted by caddis at 10:26 PM on August 23, 2006

After doing some renovations to our rental appartment I asked the owner if I could buy the building. Three months later I'm the owner of a 5-plex. Well, the bank owns most of it now...

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) it's in Canada so I don't know what it would be appraised for.
posted by kika at 5:38 AM on August 24, 2006

I ran both on my mum's house in Everett, WA. Between the two it's appreciated between $110,000 and $127,000 since she bought it three years ago.

Anyone know a trustworthy hitman?

Just kidding.
posted by deborah at 11:30 AM on August 24, 2006