<prompt> Human: This happened recently:We applied for a HELOC Home Equity Line of Credit through our bank, a reasonably reputable bank in southern New England. They required an appraisal to ensure the principle of the LOC didnt exceed the value of the house...all normal stuff and to be expected. However,Before all this, I had previously faked the stats of our Zillow listing on our house, adding sq. footage and bedrooms to try to understand the added value if we were to do some renovations. Our zestimate bumped up 35k. Net result, the value of our house was way higher on Zillow than it was in real life.When we got the appraisal back, we miraculously qualified for exactly the difference between our mortgage balance and the Zillow price. This was amazing to me. This cannot be a coincidence, they clearly did the appraisal by copying the Zillow zestimate. Had I known they were going to do this, I would have added more bedrooms and space in Zillow!Has anyone ever heard of this?! Im curious to know if this is common practice.  <response>: A lot of math is being done right now on the best way to value houses. The most expensive way is to send someone to inspect it and do a detailed inspection. The second is to send someone who knows the area to drive by it. The least is to use public algorithms.Guess which is the most accurate?None. Theyre all roughly the same. So yea, expect to see more of this. 