The real estate industry has been buzzing for months about the highly anticipated launch of Zillow.com. The team who created Expedia and changed the travel industry has now taken on the real estate industry.
So what is their service? Free online home estimates, called Zestimates by Zillow.com.
“…we landed on the ambitious goal of trying to place a value, what we cleverly call a “Zestimate,” on every house in the country and making this freely and anonymously available to anyone — kind of a “Kelley Blue Book” for homes.” says company chairman Richard Barton on the newly launched company blog for Zillow.com
”Additionally, we have tools with which anyone can analyze home price histories (like analyzing a stock), look at “comps,” and refine our Zestimates with information that only someone who has been in the house could know.”, Barton continued.
Who doesn’t want to know the value of their home with just a couple of mouse clicks? There are already services like this online but Zillow.com. is the first to come out with a free model that does not require any registration.
For now Zillow is in beta test mode.
In an interview with WSJ.com’s Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret (registration required) the company says that the service is best in metro real estate areas like Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and
Cleveland. New York is a weak spot as of now.
Zillow is likely to be a very widely used tool by home owners and a great free way to get an initial ballpark estimate for house values.
We will keep you posted on the developments and come back with a more detailed review of Zillow.com.