Cyberhomes or Zillow?
For those of you who are interested in the home valuation website Zillow, there is a relatively new player on the scene: Cyberhomes.
This is the valuation tool from Fidelity, and it’s had a rough time of gaining traction on the uber-popular Zillow, but from a pure usability standpoint I give it high marks.
One thing I noticed right away was that a website with tons of money to burn has finally used Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Birdseye view in the proper fashion: they give you the photo w/out making you ask for it. Now, most people see an icon for “Birdseye” and it means nothing to them so they don’t click it. But it’s actually a pretty cool feature. A Birdseye view is simply satellite imagary that is taken from an oblique angle. Most satellite photos are taken from directly above the item in question, but Birdseye uses imagery that is taken from an angle, so you can actually see the sides of the house. Pretty cool.
Cyberhomes has comparable sales data just like Zillow as well. Give it a try. Just type in the address of any Denver real estate (or Boulder, or Ft. Collins…) and see current valuations and comparable data. Just remember that these sites area good place to start…they’re not the final word in home valuation.
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