Zillow: Pornography for the real estate-obsessed

From today's Chronicle, "Real estate: It's pure pornography. That's how one of our former real estate editors always described it and I think the analogy is brilliant. People are obsessed by real estate. They like to look at pictures and fantasize about it. And the Internet is the best place to find it."

"That last part became abundantly clear this week when a Seattle startup called Zillow.com premiered and the real estate voyeurs lined up en masse. The site allows you to type in an address and immediately get a "zestimate" of the property's worth."

"How do they provide such a service? "We base the calculation on data from public records including physical characteristics, prior transactions and comparable home transactions," the company explains in a press releas"

"Regardless, don't make any immediate plans after you sit down and start working the zillow. I haven't seen a productivity killer like this since Google Earth premiered and the nation's cubicle dwellers spent the next three days zooming around cyberspace looking for UFOs at Area 51."

There's more about Zillow in one of my previous posts, too.