Property-Value Website Craze Continues

"With the price of real estate the subject of endless speculation, rumor, and gossip, a new buzzword is making the rounds at cocktail parties: Zillow.

While some real estate data have been available online for several years through city and town assessing databases and registries of deeds, Zillow.com is the first website to pull together local data and enable users to get an instant estimate of a home's current market value -- a "Zestimate" -- by simply typing in a street address. While they are at it, users are looking up friends, neighbors, ex-spouses, family members, bosses. It also is a gold mine of celebrity trivia, if you know the celebrity's address.

The Seattle-based website was an instant hit; it broke down under the stress of 300,000 hits in its first hours of operation last month. Since then, its popularity has continued to spread.

'I look up everybody,' said Shilepsky's friend Nulsen Smith, a financial planner for Rinet Co. He says the Zillow craze is all about comparing your largest asset against those of your friends, neighbors, and relatives, to see 'if they're doing better than you.'"