We put our house on "for sale by owner" and updated information that was years out of date. 2100 sq ft house on one level, 550 sq ft garage/shop, 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, masses of built in storage, metal roof, heat pump, built by the original owner for himself and family, .23 acre lot, fenced yard, walking distance to schools, many other amenities.
Zillow gave an estimate (Zestimate) of $374,000 after we updated the info, but a week later dropped the zestimate to $306,000 – for no reason we could see. We tried repeatedly to get the estimate changed – was told it's done by algorithm and can't be changed. We tried to get them to remove the zestimate altogether, was told they can't do that. Since the estimate drop, no one has "saved" the listing and fewer and fewer people are looking at the listing. This is costing us many possible customers, but we have no way to change what Zillow has done.
Right after the "Zestimate" was dropped 68,000, a pop up appeared suggesting we could save trouble and sell the house to Zillow! This seems like a scam and we are apparently helpless.
Why don't we just remove the listing? Because Zillow won't let us. We have to choose between saying it's no longer on the market (which isn't true) or it's sold (which also isn't true.) I don't know how Zillow is allowed to get away with this – we have filed a complaint with out state Attorney General and plan to file one with the FCC as well.