SEATTLE, Feb. 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Zillow®, the leading real estate information and home-related marketplace, now allows homeowners to see an immediate change to their Zestimate® home value when they edit facts about their home on Zillow. Previously, it took as long as several weeks for the Zestimate to update.

Zillow calculates Zestimates for 100 million U.S. homes using a sophisticated and proprietary algorithm that incorporates millions of data points from public record and user-submitted data. Since 2006, Zillow's community of users has updated more than 50 million homes, significantly enhancing Zillow's living database of all U.S. homes and adding rich data beyond what is available anywhere else.

Today, when a homeowner updates the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, lot size, year built or structural remodel yearⁱ, the algorithm will immediately recognize those changes and update the Zestimate accordingly. The change in estimated value will depend on several factors, including the home's location and the breadth of changes to a home's facts.

"We created the Zestimate because we think giving people a starting point for determining a home's worth is incredibly important and useful," said Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist. "However, our algorithm has no way of knowing as much about a given property as the people that own it, which is why we enable homeowners to provide the most up-to-date information about their home, and why it is important to have the Zestimate reflect that information in real time."

Editing home facts is easy. Homeowners first need to claim their home on Zillow.com or a Zillow mobile app by clicking "edit" on their home details page, and follow the simple prompts. Once a home is claimed and confirmed, homeowners can update their home facts.

Zillow

Zillow® is the leading real estate and rental marketplace dedicated to empowering consumers with data, inspiration and knowledge around the place they call home, and connecting them with the best local professionals who can help. Zillow serves the full lifecycle of owning and living in a home: buying, selling, renting, financing, remodeling and more. In addition to Zillow.com®, Zillow operates the most popular suite of mobile real estate apps, with more than two dozen apps across all major platforms. Launched in 2006, Zillow is owned and operated by Zillow Group (NASDAQ:Z), and headquartered in Seattle.

Zillow, Zestimate and Zillow.com are registered trademarks of Zillow, Inc.

ⁱ A structural remodel is when a change in the home is significant enough to change your home facts such as bedrooms, bathrooms or square footage and adds at least 10% to the home's square footage.

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SOURCE Zillow