Real Estate Agents Are Hiding Redfin Estimates

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In case you weren’t aware, the Zestimate now has some healthy competition from its future foe the “Redfin Estimate.”

While the name isn’t as cute or clever, it serves the exact same purpose as the Zestimate, although there’s one special feature the Zestimate doesn’t have.

You Can Hide the Redfin Estimate

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That’s right, you can make the Redfin Estimate invisible if you have claims to the property in question. Why would someone do this you ask?

Well, the only logical reason to hide it is if it’s for sale, or perhaps if the homeowner is refinancing and doesn’t want the appraiser to get any not-so-bright ideas.

In any case, what I’ve seen thus far is a lot of hiding of Redfin Estimates on behalf of listing agents, as seen in the top screenshot above.

The image below shows the Redfin Estimate in all its glory when not hidden. It looks very much like a Zestimate.

Redfin Estimate

To me, it’s a pretty tacky move to hide it because it basically says you buy into the automated value hype and you’re fearful of that algorithmically generated number.

Perhaps a stronger move would be to just “own it” and let the number be known to all prospective home buyers who happen to hit up Redfin before making an offer.

Still, if and when a property is listed for sale, the listing agent has the ability to remove the Redfin Estimate by deselecting the “Allow Automated Valuations” option within the Multiple Listing Service in which the property appears.

If the home isn’t for sale, or I suppose not listed on the MLS, it cannot be removed. And if you have beef with the Redfin Estimate, you can contact Redfin’s customer service department.

How to Hide a Zestimate

Regardless, if you’re a buyer you can always just mosey on over to Zillow and look up the very same property’s Zestimate. So there’s really no sense in hiding one estimate when the other will still be readily available online.

There’s no way to “hide a Zestimate,” which I think might have to do with the differences between Zillow and Redfin.

Zillow is simply a home listing site while Redfin is an online real estate brokerage. Clearly Redfin is more invested in the livelihood of real estate agents so they probably “get it,” whereas Zillow just wants to provide as much seemingly objective information as possible to end users.

Ultimately you can’t hide a Zestimate, but you are able to update the home facts, such as square footage, number of bathrooms and bedrooms, etc., which could increase the value. I don’t know how long it takes for the changes to reflect, but that’s your only option with Zillow.

Even so, with the vast array of information available to home buyers these days, I think it’d be silly to hide anything.

For one, a savvy buyer could use the Wayback Machine to view the Redfin Estimate before it was removed from the webpage in question. Or as noted, simply look at the Zestimate, which may in fact be lower…

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