Another interesting real estate web site

[beachmouse]

http://www.zillow.com/

"Free Instant Valuations and Data for 60,000,000+ Homes (...and you don't have to enter any personal data info and no one will contact you)"

Kind of surprising they're got numbers for Okaloosa and Walton Counties since those kinds of web sites sometimes ignore smaller markets, but I guess the tax collectors here make it easy to get their data files.

Nifty and fun web site, though it's still described as being in beta. Their values for homes in my neighborhood were pretty consistent with what houses have been really selling for, but their numbers for my parents' home in MI were way off, possibly because of incomplete data sets.

 

[Kurt]

Hmmmm $750,000 for gulf front homes in Seaside - right!

 

[beachmouse]

Yep, there are definitely areas where their price algorhythms need a kick in the CPU to try to correct some problems.

 

[SHELLY]

Hmmmm $750,000 for gulf front homes in Seaside - right!

Saw the write-up in the WSJ about Zillow yesterday--it said Zillow uses data such as tax records, sales history, and actual prices of "comparables" to come up with an estimate. Probably pulled that number from someone who did pay that for a home in Seaside at one time (and probably still owns it). That would be my guess--in addition to the fact that the website is still in the testing stage.

 

[montana]

very cool!