{"id":12235,"date":"2017-08-28T13:52:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T18:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=12235"},"modified":"2017-08-28T13:56:26","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T18:56:26","slug":"zillow-lawsuit-zestimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/corporate\/zillow-lawsuit-zestimate\/","title":{"rendered":"Zestimate suit brings a spot of good news to Zillow’s legal department"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zillow wins<\/h2>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve dismissed the class-action lawsuit filed in May against Zillow. The lawsuit alleged Zillow\u2019s Zestimate tool misled potential homebuyers into believing the Zestimates were actual, accurate appraisals.<\/p>\n

Read also: [Ongoing] Investors band together to file class action lawsuit against Zillow<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"bar\"
\nJudge Amy St. Eve stated, Zillow\u2019s Zestimates \u201care not likely to confuse potential homebuyers as they are simply a \u2018starting point\u2019 for home buying research.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit<\/h2>\n

In June, our own Connor Wrenn, covered<\/a> the contest Zillow held to fix Zestimates\u2019 algorithm. This makes you wonder just how Zillow escaped the lawsuit, considering the suit alleged that Zestimates injured home sellers and builders because it listed properties with lower values than the asking price (hinting the algorithm was faulty and shortly thereafter, Zillow is holding a contest to fix said algorithm).<\/p>\n

Judge St. Eve hints the reason is because Zillow states on their website that Zestimates are not necessarily accurate \u2013 which seems like quite the understatement.<\/p>\n

Zillow\u2019s side<\/h2>\n

Zillow has previously stated their algorithm \u201cisn\u2019t perfect.\u201d Zestimates are within 5% of the actual sale price approximately 54% of the time; within 10% of the actual sale price approximately 76% of the time; and within 20% of the actual sale price approximately 90% of the time according to the lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What about the rest of the claims?<\/h2>\n

What about the part that states Zillow\u2019s practice is listing home values based on Zestimates\u2019 algorithm was fraudulent since the company isn\u2019t a licensed appraiser.<\/p>\n

Under Illinois state law, it\u2019s indeed illegal to offer an appraisal without a state license to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, Zillow was prepared for this allegation and stated that there is a section of the same law that allows \u201cautomated variations.\u201d Judge St. Eve obviously agreed as she wrote, \u201cthe word \u2018Zestimate\u2019 – an obvious portmanteau of \u2018Zillow\u2019 and \u2018estimate\u2019 \u2013 itself indicates that Zestimates are merely an estimate of the market value of a property.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the brightside<\/h2>\n

On a positive note, however, the judge stated the plaintiffs would be allowed to re-plead three of the four claims:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The claim that Zillow violated homeowners\u2019 privacy by placing their homes on its site without their permission.<\/li>\n
  2. Plaintiffs seek an injunction for costs and attorney fees under Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (IDTPA).<\/li>\n
  3. Plaintiffs seek damages, costs, punitive damages, and attorney fees based on the violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (ICFA).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Questions, comments, concerns<\/h2>\n

    What do you think about the ruling? Do you agree with judge St. Eve, or do you think what Zillow is doing is unfair?<\/p>\n

    #Zillow<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (CORPORATE NEWS) Zillow has been making news headlines for a myriad of reasons. This time it is a spot of good news for them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335817,"featured_media":9966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[1234,1125,102],"class_list":["post-12235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","tag-real-estate-news","tag-zestimate","tag-zillow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/zillow.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12235"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12242,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12235\/revisions\/12242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}