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Zillow best taken with a grain or two of salt
We've been browsing through some info. and listings on the Zillow.com real estate site, since we may be in the market for a house this year. I noticed a house with a new For Sale sign, just down the street from our current (rental) home in Arlington, Virginia. There was an Open House showing yesterday, so I went to check it out. But first, I looked at the house info. on Zillow.com. Zillow shows a 4 BR, 2 BA house with an estimated current value of $669,000. It also mentions a detached garage. The square footage is listed as being about 75 sq. ft. more than where we live now, a 3BR/1.5BA house (which has a Zillow estimated value of 665,000.) So, the reality? The house is in no way a 4-bedroom house. It's 3 small bedrooms, or really more like 2 bedrooms with a first floor office/den/playroom that could also be used as a bedroom (it does have a good-sized closet). Now, it's a nice enough house. Among other things, it has larger bathrooms and kitchen than our current home, a good amount of closet space for the age of the house, and built-in cabinets in the dining room and hallway. But that detached garage? It's a small storage shed, which MIGHT be large enough to park a small car if one weren't storing anything else in it. And as for square footage comparisons: The listed house has a small basement utility room for the furnace and a bit of storage; entry to this room is from outside the house. (The washer & dryer are on the first floor, off the kitchen.) Our current house has a full basement, which is unfinished and unheated (and therefore doesn't count in square footage on paper, as far as I know). But does provide a lot of storage space, along with plenty of space for, say, a drying rack next to the washer & dryer. This basement also has a separate room which provides some decent space for our kids to play when the weather is cold or rainy, as long as we use a space heater and cover the floor with rugs. This room is big enough for the kids to use their small climbing dome indoors (with mats underneath, of course!), and is entered without having to go outside the house. Also, our current home has a real garage, which provides significant additional storage space, along with ample covered space for our one car. The listed house has a decent-size front porch and a nice deck in back. On the other hand, our current house has an added-on sunroom -- again, unheated and therefore not counted in square footage -- but this provides additional covered storage space, or play space (with a space heater). So, this is not to say that one house is better than the other -- it all depends on your needs, preferences, and what you want to use the space for. There are other differences I haven't detailed, such as the ages of the houses, the percentage of windows which have storm windows installed, proximity to a Metro station, etc. In any case, it was an interesting personal experiment with testing the Zillow.com info. against a real-life viewing of one particular house. Oh, and that Zillow estimate? The house for sale is currently listed at $719,000 -- or $50,000 more than the Zillow estimate. Room for some bargaining? Perhaps. Good luck with your house hunting!
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Contributor's Note
If you're interested in the specific house I visited, you can go to my website, That Swimming Lizard at Zazzle.com -- then click on By Special Request under the All Product Lines list on the right. This will show you a link to more info., including the exact address.
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