Trulia: Great Way to Perpetuate Wrong Information

So, my sister-in-law is selling her house and so we took a look at Zillow.com and Trulia.com.

While Zillow incorporates all of the county updates, land pricing, etc., Trulia does not.

And in fact, Trulia actually has a disclaimer (hidden, of course) that has the accuracy of its estimates.

The accuracy is appalling.

To view the accuracy for your home, you'll have to actually DOWNLOAD an Excel file.  If you don't have Excel, you'll have to find a viewer or you're screwed.

But the part that pisses me off is that it's one of those websites that pretends to be accurate and truthful when it is anything but.

For example, the number of houses in Minnesota that are correctly priced within 5% of the estimate is 22.5%.  (so, about a 5th of the homes in the state are close to what is shown on Trulia).  But the trend doesn't improve as you go to 10% or 20% of the Trulia estimate.

For example, a house that is accurately priced at 200,000, will show up in Trulia anywhere from $160,000 to $240,000.

Even then, they only guarantee that 73% of the homes are correct within THAT range.

That's helpful, right?

Completely not.

Don't use Trulia.com.  It's not true for you at all.