Question about Zillow.com/Trulia.com

I bought a house a few years back from a person who had another house (his primary house) several towns away.

After the transaction concluded back in 2017, the house was listed as “recently sold” on Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgages & Home Values for several months afterwards & then reverted to a standard estimate (on Zillow, referred to as a “Zestimate”). All facts for the house were updated at the time of the sale, and the information for my house remained unchanged in 2018 & 2019.

However, sometime in 2020, my estimate disappeared (but every house around me still had their Zestimates). When I investigated this further, it turns out that my house (with all the updated facts) was listed at the address of the person I bought the house from back in 2017 (along with his current house). When I reached out to Zillow to inquire about this, I received no reply. I also checked Trulia, which also lists my house as being at the address of the person I bought it from back in 2017 (again, several towns away).

So how does Zillow/Trulia obtain their information? Is there some “master list” somewhere that has erroneously listed my house in the wrong town (and/or having the wrong owner)?

They get most of their information from MLS databases which are updated by local realtors (excuse me, REALTORS®). Their estimates are based on data from nearby sales. Because there’s all kinds of wacky stuff in MLS and not much standardization of the data, all sorts of weird stuff and mistakes can creep into the databases.