BROOKS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Pete and Pat Hall were on vacation when their realtor called to tell them she had gotten a bite on their home.
But the potential buyers had a concern: The house on Emerald Lake, north of Newagyo, had been flagged as a foreclosure on the popular website Zillow.
“We didn’t know what in the world to think,” Pete Hall recalled. “We emailed (Zillow) and told them it was totally erroneous, there was no foreclosure, and we demanded that it be removed.”
The Halls say they’ve never missed a payment on the house.
After Target 8 contacted Zillow, the company acknowledged its mistake. Zillow removed the inaccurate foreclosure reference, but by that time, the potential buyer had moved on and word had spread.
"It was the embarrassment of it,” Hall said, remembering how upset he and his wife were about the inaccurate listing. “When we came back from vacation, I would (tell people that) we were having problems with Zillow, that it showed our house in foreclosure, and they would say, 'Oh, yes, we saw that. We wondered about that.’”
Several months later, in June, the Halls' property showed up on Zillow as foreclosed again.
“My blood pressure probably went sky-high,” Hall said. "I mean, it did go sky-high.”
That's when they turned to Target 8 for help, and we soon discovered the Halls weren't the only West Michigan homeowners blindsided by inaccurate information on Zillow.
Full story: WOOD TV