This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 9:24 am and is filed under Luxury Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Instant Homes Values via Your Cell
Disruptive technologies are a special favorite on this blog, and HouseFront is the newest to hit my desk. And it happened about twenty minutes ago, when I opened an email from James Eberhard, CEO of Housefront.
The premise is simple. Want to know the value of a home? Follow these simple steps with your cell phone:
1. Text any address to 46873.
2. Open your results a few seconds later.
The valuation I tried came back very close to market value, with a tighter range than that offered by Zillow’s Zestimates. The message comes back in two parts, with the first providing sales history and area market and pricing trends. The second message contains the estimate of value.
What makes this even more useful, is that their website saves your text searches.
More to follow on this topic, for sure!
April 16th, 2007 at 6:16 am
What’s your take that it includes the owner’s name in the text message as well?
April 16th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Ann: It’s the information that was sure to flow when Pandora’s Real Estate Box was opened. Housefront culls their information from several sources including tax records and the MLS. The former generally includes the owner’s name(s). Good question, though!
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Roberta,
Great post! I just tried it, that is so cool! I have never seen anything like except for maybe the google text thing. Thank you for the tip!! Does it cost money? (if yes, I still say it’s worth it!)
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Andrew: HouseFront is free. I spoke with their CEO and there will eventually be advertising opportunities for Realtors. I have tried Housefront throughout the Carlsbad and Encinitas, CA neighborhoods, and the technology has worked 100 percent of the time. What a real estate tool!