Free-For-All Home Value Estimates Over The Web: Help or Hinderance?

Zillow.com may place another bee in the bonnet of real estate professionals across the U.S. On the other hand, it may also help REPs by enabling sellers to gain some realistic expectations about their home's value. Whichever way you view it, Zillow.com is now available in beta format and may soon be findings its way to your clients' computers. On their "about us" page on the website, "Zillow.com is an online real estate service dedicated to helping you get an edge in real estate by providing you with valuable tools and information." What does it do? "Zillow.com calculates a valuation (the Zestimate^TM) that anyone can see - for free - for most homes in the U.S., including yours. Or the one you want to be yours. Or the one you are curious about. Or ours, for that matter."

Once complete, a visitor can enter any U.S. address into the simple home page and a map appears with the home value estimate, square footage of the house in question, number of bedrooms, number of baths, lot size, the year it was built, and the date it was last sold. You can also tweak the "ZestimatorÔ", as they call it, to include remodeling values. In its beta stage, only certain areas are currently available for search.