Zoopla

[sgu00dir]

This may be common knowledge but I havnt been able to find any info.

Why does Zoopla show prices across the country at every address, coming down over the past 6 months, despite every metric showing continual growth.

Do they know something others don't??

[spunko2010]

Not sure what you mean, do you mean their predicted price graph for specific properties?

[sgu00dir]

Exactly. Type in any property in the UK, even ones next to Crossrail in outer London that are currently seeing double digit growth and they all show price drop?! Its a generic trend change they are seeing, but what is this based on as all official metrics show prices still rising?!

[spunko2010]

I don't know, but I doubt it's an intentional lowering, given that it appears to only be up to now - rather than in the future. Zoopla is owned by the Daily Ramp Group so anything to talk down the market won't be tolerated.

[sgu00dir]

Is very weird. Look at the UK average curve. It shows prices peaked before 2016 and are now going down which is plainly wrong. How can the biggest price site get it so wrong??

[spunko2010]

Did you notice it today? It might be a bug I guess. I doubt Zoopla are trying to drive down the market - sadly!

[sgu00dir]

It changed today or yesterday. I noticed it as a property I had my eye on went down in valuation by 6K!!

[CunningPlan]

Odd. GU24 seems to have dropped £15k over three months on average (and 18k on the average detached).

If only it were true ....

[rantnrave]

Possibly they've changed the way the values are calculated? I've seen EA blogs where valuations on Zoopla in particular has been blasted for giving vendors false expectations.

[sgu00dir]

Maybe they have changed how they calculate but they should say so, because their trend graph (posted above) is looking totally wrong! A huge schoolboy error if so.

I emailed them but was fobbed off with the usual 'its just an approximate etc.'

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Maybe prices are collapsing and no one wants to tell the greatest fools.

Buy now before you miss out because....

[monkeyman1974]

maybe they've changed from a exponential growth trend line

[Andy T]

I looked at a property near me - last week Zoopla valued it at £325k, now £303k....

clicking the drop down box for value change, shows -0.7% regardless of time period 6mnth/1/2/5 years etc. - something seems to have gone wrong with that function as well.

The last zoopla 'whats changed ' email for my postcode areas was showing the usual 6-7% YoY increases (around South Manchester)

Sure they will 'fix' it.

[Kiwi Toast]

I used to check a few property valuations on zoopla quite often. They used to be to the £ and change daily. Now they are to the nearest thousand and change infrequently. But there have been downward revisions to valuations before. It seems more likely to attribute this to the valuations having got ahead of themselves than an actual fall (e.g. we thought this flat increased in value from £380,000 to £400,000 last month, but now we believe last month it was worth £385,000 and this month £390,000).

[suntory]

This is bizarre. Across a variety of different London postcodes, prices clearly peaked sometime Q3 2015 according to Zoopla. Perhaps their algorithms are more advanced than Halifax et al. They do have a lot more data at hand after all (asking prices, reductions, number of clicks etc.).

Does anyone have a theory on what is going on here?

[porca misèria]

Can't speak for glitches in the system.

But regarding individual houses, it's perfectly reasonable that valuations should drop. If a place has been on the market for a while and not sold, that is evidence that it's overpriced. That could be feeding into the algorithm.

They might also be trying to model the effect of the stamp duty change bubble.

I don't know, but I doubt it's an intentional lowering, given that it appears to only be up to now - rather than in the future. Zoopla is owned by the Daily Ramp Group so anything to talk down the market won't be tolerated.

Not true. Zoopla is an independent company. DMGT is a major shareholder due to having taken shares in payment when zoopla acquired some of their assets, but that's all. And they were one of the sellers when zoopla floated on the stockmarket.

[sgu00dir]

But regarding individual houses, it's perfectly reasonable that valuations should drop.

That would be reasonable but is not what is happening. Look at the picture at the top of this thread, shows house prices going down for the UK as a whole. Which is plainly incorrect according to all official data. I challenge someone to find a property with a + next to it over last 3 months!!!

I think that they have changed their algorithm slightly which has lowered every value across the board but makes their trend graph look bonkers

[spunko2010]

Porca, it's owned by both dmgt and countrywide ... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopla

[shindigger]

I wouldn't take any notice of Zoopla. Ever. Apart form the historic side of things. Thats quite good.

My place was valued on there at 40k under the offer i got.

Sale did not complete however.

But only because i pulled out, not the buyer.

And the reason i pulled out was everywhere else had goen radio rental and i decided i liked my place enough to stay.

So i conclude for "live pricing" Zoopla is a crock of shit.

Way off.

[winkie]

Whatever they say it is doing....I am NOT buying it.

[porca misèria]

Porca, it's owned by both dmgt and countrywide ... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopla

That page seems to be rather ill-informed. Not wholly wrong, but a number of errors. It was never owned by DMGT, for instance.

I've kind-of followed the Zoopla story since a VC fund I invest in was one of Zoopla's early backers, going back well before the DMGT deal. Though we now own less than 2%.

[South Lorne]

This may be common knowledge but I havnt been able to find any info.

Why does Zoopla show prices across the country at every address, coming down over the past 6 months, despite every metric showing continual growth.

Do they know something others don't??

...could be the BofE and Government war against the BTL bubble which started 6th April with the higher BTL stamp duty with lots of other squeezes on the way.....

[crashmonitor]

Having had my house on the market I did pay a bit of attention to zoopla's erratic index for individual properties for the fun of it.

I have to say it was fairly accurate and for some reason they did downgrade values in April as per the OP.

When I put the house on in February zoopla said 271k.

When I completed in March zoopla said 279k

Today zoopla says 267k

There has been some odd adjustment these last few days, and it probably is an adjustment as opposed to anything that has happened to the market.

BTW I sold for 275k....so initial valuations very accurate.

[MississippiJohnHurt]

Having had my house on the market I did pay a bit of attention to zoopla's erratic index for individual properties for the fun of it.

I have to say it was fairly accurate and for some reason they did downgrade values in April as per the OP.

When I put the house on in February zoopla said 271k.

When I completed in March zoopla said 279k

Today zoopla says 267k

There has been some odd adjustment these last few days, and it probably is an adjustment as opposed to anything that has happened to the market.

BTW I sold for 275k....so initial valuations very accurate.

That settles it then

[Andy T]

I can't attach an image properly on this pc sorry.

My watched postcodes have all dropped between January & March Zoopla valuations (I don't think they sent one in February)

M20 - Was +6.01% (12 months) now -0.5%

M21 - Was +6.61% (12 Months) now -0.54%

Average price paid shown has stayed virtually the same, so seems isolated from actual data.

Zed-Index has always been a good chunk higher than price paid for as long as I can remember, perhaps they are trying to bring it more in line with actuals. Bet estate agents aren't happy.