A colleague posed the question after seeing that his house in Abington was listed online by its Glenside zip code - which is shared by portions of Cheltenham and Springfield Townships - and that the house was described as being in the Jenkintown School District, which covers only homes in the borough of Jenkintown.
Other examples of local inaccuracies: One of the sites suggested that Haddon Township schools were the closest to a house in Haddonfield - which, of course, has a school district of its own.
Ken Shuman, head of communications at Trulia, said his website obtained information on 95 million houses from county assessors' offices nationwide and Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions, a data provider.
Various sources provide details about Zillow's 100-million-plus homes, both for rent and for sale, said chief economist Stan Humphries: "Information comes in from public-record data, real estate brokerages, users of our information [consumers], and real estate agents directly."
School sources provide that information, Humphries said, adding that "we do take pains to say the closest school to the property will not necessarily be the one children will be attending."
"It would be great if we knew, but very difficult to know exactly," he said.
Real estate agents take issue with these website flaws, as well as with the values the sites place on houses, for sale or not. (They also offer price information about homes already sold, for example.)
When asked whether he recommended these sites to consumers, Kit Anstey of Prudential Fox & Roach in Chester County said, "Absolutely not. Very misleading."
But Mark Wade of Prudential Fox & Roach in Center City said the real estate websites did have some value.
