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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOUR HOUSE MIGHT BE WORTH?

Or your boss’ house? Or the pastor’s? Using ZILLOW.COM, you can get an estimate of the value of any house in the U.S.

FULL DISCLOSURE: The guys who set up this site are warning that it’s still in the test stage, and there are some discrepancies.

Zillow.com’s debut this month has drawn mixed reviews. “My home was Zillow-priced at $429,000, and I just had it appraised two weeks ago for $510,000. Big difference,” says Guy Sutherland, an agent at Windermere Real Estate in Seattle. “It’s not reliable, and it’s misleading to consumers.”

Zillow.com also has received feedback from consumers who complain that the site has the wrong number of bedrooms or bathrooms, or doesn’t reflect the value of a recent remodeling. Zillow.com allows users to modify a property description to get a better value, and Barton says the company is working to clean up the data.

Zillow.com also can be surprisingly accurate. Its Zestimate was just $5,000 higher than a home currently listed for sale at $489,000 in Orange County, Calif., says Dennis Mihelic, marketing director of Realty Executives/OC Dream Homes in Orange County.

The cool thing is that Zillow.com plans to make their money off of the ads on the site, so they don’t demand any contact information that other sites get and then sell to real estate operators.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/27 at 01:39 PM

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