The five failures
Each one compounds the others:
- Comp scarcity — models average what barely exists here, and average across genuinely different properties.
- Invisible water — frontage quality, bank character, and view premiums appear nowhere in the data schema.
- Flattened land — acreage, timber, pasture, and outbuildings compress into crude fields.
- Unseen systems — the well’s strength and septic’s youth are five-figure facts absent from records.
- Stretch nuance — Leaburg is not Nimrod is not Vida; averaging across them blurs what buyers precisely distinguish.
What to use instead
For a real number: comps walked in person, adjustments argued openly, and documentation that survives appraisal. That is an afternoon of my work and it is free — the algorithm’s number is faster and worth its price too.
Sellers anchored to inflated estimates and buyers weaponizing deflated ones both lose to participants holding ground truth. Be the party with the argument, not the printout.
Local rule of thumb: Trust the estimate that has mud on its boots.