How is Zestimate Calculated?

A lot of us use the Zestimate on zillow.com to get the value of a house. How is it calculated? Watch the Zillow videos.

For real estate professionals:




For general site users:

Real Estate Seminar (Part II)

The second part of the seminar had 25-30 attendees from Cisco. The questions from the audience were very specific:

• is real estate in bay area hitting the bottom yet?
• when is a good time to buy?
• how is the rental market in bay area?
• shall we look outside of bay area if we want positive cash flow?
• what are the tax advantages of real estate investment?
• what about loan options for investment properties?
  

Dr. Ho addressed the questions based on his first-hand info on the market and 30+ years of experience of seeing the ups and downs in the real estate market in bay area. It was a greatly informative and educational seminar, for veteran investors as well as first-time home buyers.

Real Estate Seminar (Part I)

Last Friday, Dr. Ho hosted a real estate seminar in San Jose with 35-40 attendees from Cisco, including their family and friends. It was an open forum with the purpose to address questions on people's mind regarding real estate and investment in bay area.

Dr. Ho brings together his expertise in medical knowledge and 30+ years of experience in real estate, and started the session with an anatomy on decision making:

• Should I buy?
• Can I buy?
• Will I buy?

After all, buying your first home or an investment property is probably one of the most important decisions to make in life. Dr. Ho went on to open up the floor to the audience, addressing their specific questions as well as throwing in some fundamental guidelines for real estate investment. Some highlights:

• 4 Quadrants: wage earner, salary earner, business owner, investor. The goal is to become an investor and make the money work for you.
• Dr. Ho's 2 Principles of Real Estate Investment, from his 30+ years of experience (sorry we can't divulge the "secret" here; you'll have to attend the seminar or contact Dr. Ho otherwise to find it out)
• Criteria to buy an investment property: cash flow analysis, ROI, rental market, supply and demand curve
• Your own home is not an investment, as contrary to some popular belief.
• Why does the housing market behave like a basketful of rice?

The session was nicely concluded with a delicious catered lunch and mingling among the attendees. It was a diverse audience with some people looking to buy their very first home, and some others looking to add more investment properties to their portfolio. People exchanged information and learned from each other.