Zillow was started by the ex-Microsoft guys who started Expedia, which is now part of Barry Diller’s empire. I occasionally use Zillow to check on the value of our house.
I’ve cropped out the numbers, but the turquoise line is the median price of homes in my town, the blue line is our house, and the red line is for the county. See how our house started to fall below the median right before we moved there? Good timing, although I admit it was purely luck. We’re in a good town to be below the median. The $ indicates when we bought the place.
A year or so ago property values started to drop, as they did in most places. We’re back down to where we were three years ago, and now I see we’ve dropped below the median for the county for the first time. Well, we’re not moving, so I’m not going to worry about it!
I don’t know if Zillow is truly reflective of property values, but it’s useful for tracking trends, as it does in the chart above. One thing I wonder, however, is if Zillow will do to real estate what the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide once did to back issues of comic books, and start to lead the market rather than follow it. Later, eBay came along, greatly diminishing the utility of an annual price guide. Old comics flooded the market and prices for certain issues collapsed, while the market for one-of-a-kind original art skyrocketed.
Hey, I was at work. Brain doesn’t work right there. But you know that. Actually, no, we didn’t have Wocket at our house, that I can recall. The Lorax I read to Eric many times.
While it’s true I hadn’t heard of zillow, you’re the one who labeled me S&S. Not only that, but you clearly didn’t get the Dr. Seuss references. Perhaps it’s been too long since “Ye Olde Kiddo” was Ye New Kiddo, or perhaps you never read “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket” 🙂
Damn! You made me look again, and the property value has already gone down again since yesterday!
But, yes, we hope to never leave the place. Ideally, we’d like to pass it on to Ye Olde Kiddo.
What?? How can you not know this? You’re supposed to be the smart and savvy one!
I became aware of Zillow I think literally the week it went online. PCWorld Online had a blurb about it. At least I think it was PCWorld.
To get to the graph after entering the address click on “Your result” at the bottom and the next screen will have Graphs & Data. You’ll be prompted with one of those security codes that appears as a distorted graphic.
Where did you find zillow? Was it on your pillow? Is that the kind of house you live in? Sounds like you hope you never leave it…
Oh, and did you have to register to get the graph? Couldn’t find it easily.