One of the major trends these days is to provide consumers with information about home values, generated 'on the fly' by machines and delivered over the Internet. Locally, Zillow has made big news, first by raising many millions to further their efforts to provide a consumer portal for home valuations. This has drawn ire from the real estate brokerage world as infringing on what historically has been the role of the agent.

Also locally, John L. Scott recently rolled out a way to get "comparable" values of homes close to yours. They can't call this a home valuation because of MLS rules but it is still designed to give one a sense of what a home might be worth as appraisals are generally based on comparable sales.

Just the other day, a company called Visient announced that they are now delivering a tool for even the small broker to provide home valuation information straight off the broker's web site.

So what does the average consumer expect to gain by using an automated home valuation tool and are these tools better or worse than the traditional way that consumers received home valuation information?

Some have said that using these new tools is bad. You may have read that Zillow has recently been attacked by a consumer group for allegedly delivering misleading information to consumers.

I disagree. The Internet has enabled free flow of information in many forms. My mom (bless her heart) constantly sends me emails about extraordinarily dangerous things that she received from friends (and others) via email. One of the best ones is about toilet spiders here. Most are false or very misleading. Some, however, are true and worthy of my time. I have to use my own judgment to determine which is which.

I think the same goes true with home valuations whether you get them over the Web with the click of a mouse or from a licensed real estate agent. Certainly, the computerized valuation systems can have errors because they are relying on sometimes inaccurate public data. I think even the folks at Zillow would acknowledge that their system does not provide pinpoint accuracy. That said, when I sold my last home, I had listing presentations from three agents and the suggested listing prices varied by 10% from lowest to highest and not one was close to the other. In selecting an agent, we used our best judgment on the person, not the value that they suggested. In the end, the home sold for more than 5% less than what our listing agent had said it would sell for.

Information is information and consumers need to consider the source, use their own independent judgment and realize that a home value is never really determined until closing when the funds get transferred into the seller's bank account.

-Russ