Every now and then, Zillow will send me an email telling me what my house is currently worth. It’s down $200,000 from last year.
What Zillow doesn’t know is that the photo of my house on their website is woefully out of date. That green grassy lawn is long gone, replaced by drought tolerant plants which attract bees, hummingbirds and butterflies.
The trees in the photo have been cut down — the Eucalyptus in the park, the redwoods on the right (cut down this week by my neighbors below me), and the pine tree throwing shade on the grass (it blew over in a wind storm).
The holes by design in the roof are gone over the windows. I had them filled by the contractor, the one that added 300 square feet onto the right side of my house in 2015 (also not pictured).
The three porches I added (two with the addition and one with the hall bathroom reno) are not mentioned in the Zillow listing.
The dozen trees I planted are not shown. The volunteers (planted by the birds and the squirrels) that have grown into trees are not shown.
It’s been fourteen years, and my house and yards have been greatly improved. That’s the fun part about owning a home. You get to make it better and enjoy the improvements.
I’m sure that AI will fix all of this, sooner rather than later. For now, I can hope that my improvements have raised the value by at least $200,000.
In the end, it’s a wash. Thanks, Zillow, for the memories of what I bought.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 