HouseFront.com - yet another home valuation service , now with owner’s names revealed
by KenWith so many online home valuation companies available on the internet these days, its hard to deciper which ones to use. Threre's Zillow, Cyberhomes, Real Estate ABC, to name a few. My take - use them all and compare them side-by-side and make your own estimates based on all the comps available. If you are an agent, work with your clients to help them take the additional steps to make the valuations more comprehensive by taking into details that are not available online such as the upgrades to the property, the property's location to schools and their APIs, and of course the exact location of your home (corner lot, cul-de-sac, on top of the hill with a panoramic view etc, etc,etc.)
More recently, HouseFront.com has been making some headlines. At first glance, HouseFront.com and Zillow.com share strikingly similar offerings with instant home valuations, mobile valuations, and the ability to add photos and listing details to your home. However, a closer look reveals one eye-catching offering that catapults the curiosity factor to a new level - all home valuation queries returns the complete home ownership history, listing all the names of current owners as well as previous owners. What ? Now you can not only figure out how much your neighbor's home is worth, but you can also find out who actually lives there and who lived there before. Browsing through the site, I came across some of the top searches on the site here. The list includes homes of: Harrison Ford, Priscilla Presley, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jodie Foster, and many more…
What do you think ? Is this going too far or do we actually need to know the owner's names when we're searching for home valuations ?
Tags:housefront.com home valuations online valuation Realivent Updates
Popularity: 16% [?]
Ok, I’m thinking this going too far. What real benefit is there to publishing the owners names except to maybe satisfy people’s sense of curiosity?
I’m not completely familiar with privacy laws in the US, but I’m pretty sure this would violate privacy laws here in Canada.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:28 amI too believe that it is unnecessary to publish names of owners. This is best left at the public record’s office for those who have the deepest desire to find it. It shouldn’t be available within a few clicks for everyone to see. I can’t remember any situation where it was necessary to learn about the individuals or family members who live in a particular home of interest while I’m searching for properties online.
In California, this information is actually presented in listing packets at open houses (provided by Title Companies), but it is displayed only at the point of sale. Taking it the next step and making it easier to find online is too much transparency.
As far as privacy laws are concerned , I don’t think there are any legal obstacles in place that would prevent such a service because these records are all pulled from public records anyways.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:55 pmGood to know Ken, thanks! You (I) learn something new everyday.
Very interesting stuff.
June 7th, 2007 at 6:17 amWait a minute.
Are people searching by address or name?
If they are searching by address, then the likelihood is they already knew who lived there and did the search in order to have the celebs names up there, right?
Or does the site have the capability to search by name?
June 7th, 2007 at 9:03 amNickie, your’re right - they probably already identified some of those celebrity homes for demos. Searching by owner’s name is not available YET…
June 8th, 2007 at 11:34 amgood gracious! thanks for this informative information.keep it up,goahead.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:33 am[…] Here's the main message of the ad - "and your neighbors too". So Zillow was right - give consumers something to be curious about and they will come. Coldwell Banker is the latest to use the Curiosity Factor as a driving force to attract more online homebuyers and sellers to their site and joins the forces of Cyberhomes, Zillow, Real Estate ABC, HouseFront, and Property Shark to offer some variation of automated valuation services for anyone to freely use. […]
June 14th, 2007 at 9:06 pm[…] Check it out: http://realiventblog.com/2007/06/06/housefrontcom-yet-another-home-valuation-service-now-with-owners-names-revealed/ Send Bookmark To […]
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 am[…] Check it out: http://realiventblog.com/2007/06/06/housefrontcom-yet-another-home-valuation-service-now-with-owners-names-revealed/ Send Bookmark To […]
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 am[…] Check it out: http://realiventblog.com/2007/06/06/housefrontcom-yet-another-home-valuation-service-now-with-owners-names-revealed/ Send Bookmark To […]
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 amHere is another article about HouseFront and Celebrity Homes
at:
Family Forest Applauds HouseFront
November 21st, 2007 at 2:02 amhttp://familyforest.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/
[…] Check it out: Realivent […]
July 25th, 2008 at 8:42 amTo whom it May Concern.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:31 pmI am appreciate with your placing my name and address on your website. If possible would you please remove my name and my address from your list. I would like to have an a privacy and security too. It is okay, If I publishing your SS and your Credit card and your address to the world would you be happy with it. If you kindly please remove my information from you website asap. Thank you very much.