Internet data credibility
The Internet has always faced a content choice issue based on data credibility - does a search engine actually produce reliable references, or do "experts" fare better in delivering references unbiased beyond agenda? The obvious answer is both interpretations are necessary to assess the relative value of real estate data.
| Search item | Automated data/search analysis | Results customized by human overview |
| Property valuation | Zillow, Cyberhomes | Redfin Sweet Digs, Socketsite and Curbed survey properties, but there will also be real estate agents who know the market best |
| Housing market conditions | Altos Research, Case Schiller index | Real Estate Voices (real estate article submissions) Housing Doom and ImplodeMeter article list (to check on the downside) Positive on Real Estate.com (antidote to Housing Doom) |
| Real estate research | Google - driven | Swanepoel's Trends report |
| Search engines | Google - driven | Mahalo, About.com - Search Engine Journal 2/28/08 on why Mahalo and human intervention search will fail because data is just too fast to capture by hand |
| Blogs | Numerous blog directories | Blogged.com |
Which leads me to Stefan Swanepoel's excellent compendium on Real Estate Trends Report. Without sifting through Internet to cobble together a snapshot of the real estate industry, Stefan summarizes this in Book 1.0 format.
Pat I would think that for homevaluations a combination of the two would be the most trusted.
A computer generated valuation from HomeGain or Zillow based on public comparables is a good starting point.
But the opinion of a local realtor using that data will give the best answer especially if that realtor is factoring in the quality of his or her salesmanship in making his or her assessment as the value property.
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"Tin foil" means one thing if you're 80, but it may be a hot band if your 19. I think that a hybrid search engine will do well -- spider driven, manipulated a bit by hand. Eventually, we will all be able to put in our age, sex, height, religion, etc. and by choice choose to have someone monkey with the search results for us. We will also be able to turn off this feature at will. I also see a future with niche search engines. A person interested in food would use X search engine whereas a person interested in the economy would use Y search engine. For everything else, Google (or something else).
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Their system of using humans to rank each blog submitted seems flawed. Not that humans are flawed but I saw many highly respected real estate blogs that fall fairly far down on their list. Who knows what their editors like and why? Not taking away from those who made page one, but curious about their methodology. Well, actually, not really that curious. Just bringing it up.
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The best choice is that gain information on both. Trust information form humans.
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Computers will never be as good as humans. The problem with humans, is they have a brain, desire, envy, and can rank people as they see fit.
I agree with many of the above statements, that a cohesive effort to combine the 2 are the most important.
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