Below are some stats I received in an email from Zillow and have copied here.
Real Estate Market Trends in Yountville
According to the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, home values in Yountville decreased 19.3% in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the second quarter of 2008. Nationally, home values decreased 12.1% during this same period.
Zillow Home Value Index
Yountville Home Prices and Home Values
Zillow Home Value Index Mid-point of Zestimate valuations for 94599. Half the Zestimates are above this number and half are below it.
Seeing these stats for Yountville, I live here and have been selling real estate here for 20+ years, made me think how the stats from BAREIS, my Multiple Listing Service (MLS), would compare. The problem is how to compare apples for apples. My understanding of Zillow Home Value Index is limited and after spending 10+ minutes reading up on “What is a Zestimate Value?”, I decided just to use the solds from BAREIS for the same periods and let the reader make up their own conclusions. Since Zillow uses median prices, I have done the same.
Time Period # Sold Median Sales Price % Change from 2008
3/1/08 – 6/30/08 8 $532,500
3/1/09 – 6/30/09 2 $532,500 0
The obvious question, are the number of solds statistically accurate for comparing them to anything in Zillow? One fact I did find worth noting: the number of solds in BAREIS for these periods was equal to the number of solds in Realist, a First American CoreLogic online data delivery company, except for one foreclosure sale in 2008. It did affect the median price by $10,084 which would make the price drop for 2009 solds 1.9%. All I can say, based on the limited number of sales so far, Yountville seems to be doing ok. If you ask me what my gut tells me based upon my 20+ years experience, I would have to say there has been a price drop for this period and my guess would be 10%.
Hi Curtis,
Katie from Zillow here. I’m glad that email gave you some food for thought. Very smart analysis you’ve done. In case you haven’t yet discovered it, Zillow recently launched a new section of the Web site with in-depth local real estate statistics — much more than we’ve had in the past. You can see some more Yountville stats here. This data goes down to the ZIP code level and lets you see what is happening in neighboring towns, as well. You might find the FAQs handy — at the bottom of the page are definitions of every metric we have. I hope you enjoy.