The blog will focus on the South Sound, state and national housing and rental markets, as well as cool Web sites, weird real estate trends and warnings about scams.
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Open House is a forum to read about and discuss real estate issues. It is not a place to pitch your services. That means no direct solicitation, no phone numbers and no pushing readers to your Web site or place of business.
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Real estate and the housing bubble
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Let’s start things off with Zillow.com. You might have already visited the Seattle company’s Web site to check out the value of your (or your neighbors’) home. The company provides data on millions of houses and condos, including charts that track supposed values for up to 10 years once you type in an address. The Seattle company won’t reveal how it derives the values, called “Zestimates," which pop up alongside number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage.
I ran my mom’s house in Kitsap County. The value looked good (maybe a little too good), but most of the stats listed were inaccurate, including square footage, number of bedrooms and acreage. A spokesman told me that such statistics are pulled from county records so the county must have it wrong.
How does your house (or your neighbors' – you know you’ve looked!) stack up? (See our previous blog coverage of Zillow here.)
