| How Much is Your House Worth?Yesterday Zillow | | | | investment. This gives both buyers and sellers an |
| announced the launch of their real estate information | | | | real-time view of the local housing market.How Will |
| site, offering free valuations on more than 60 million | | | | Remodeling Affect Your House Value? The |
| homes across the United States. You can see the | | | | Zestimator tool allows you to play "What If?" |
| estimated value of your house, your neighbor's | | | | scenarios, to estimate the impact of adding a room, |
| house, or just about any other home in the country | | | | finishing the basement, or remodeling the kitchen. Plug |
| -- whether it's for sale or not. That's cool. Just enter | | | | in your changes, and Zillow re-calculates the new |
| an address, and you can view not only the valuation, | | | | value for your home based on local remodel and |
| but all of the info below for every home in the | | | | depreciation data.There are many factors that Zillow |
| neighborhood:Number of bedrooms, bathrooms, | | | | may not be able to take into consideration when |
| square footage, lot size, stories and year built. | | | | estimating the value of a home, so it's still a good |
| Historical value changes, charted over the past year, | | | | idea to hire a professional appraiser to evaluate a |
| five years or ten years. | | | | property, if you're serious about buying or selling. But |
| All comparable home sales in an area. | | | | do try Zillow to get an estimate of the market value |
| Satellite, aerial and parcel views (if available)Best of | | | | of your home, a neighbor's home, or a home in a |
| all, is free, and does not require you to register, | | | | neighborhood where you might be considering a |
| subscribe, login or enter any personal information. | | | | purchase. It's also a great tool if you're curious about |
| That's VERY cool. Zillow CEO Rich Barton sums up his | | | | what a neighbor's house sold for.Reprinted from: |
| philosophy like this: "We believe you shouldn't need a | | | | RANKIN... is a tech writer and computer programmer |
| computer science degree or a real estate license to | | | | who enjoys exploring the Internet and sharing the |
| find out what a home is worth. That's why we | | | | fruit of his experience with others. His work has |
| created Zestimate values, providing free and instant | | | | appeared in ComputerWorld, NetGuide, and NY |
| valuations for millions of homes in America."For the | | | | Newsday. Bob is publisher of the Internet TOURBUS |
| true information addicts, Zillow's estimated values are | | | | newsletter, author of several computer books, and |
| updated daily, so you can track the value of your | | | | creator of the website. |