Zillow made a big splash when they first showed up a few years back. Mostly it grabbed people because it was so much fun to enter your neighbors' addresses and see what Zillow said their homes were worth. Mind you these days that exercise is mostly depressing! And, those "zestimates" were never very accurate.

I told sellers then, and still believe, that you need to know what Zillow says about your house. Because there's a pretty good chance that potential buyers will know.

And, an article in today's Realty Times emphasizes why Zillow is continuing to gain in importance. REALTOR.com has been the big boy on the block forever. But from a technological perspective it's been a long time since they had anything approaching a technological edge. And, while, theoretically, REALTOR.com exists to serve me as a member of the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), for most of us it feels like it exists to gouge us!

While Zillow (and other sites) will allow me to upload unlimited photos, virtual tours and other good stuff, all for free. REALTOR.com charges me for everything, including having my name on my own listings! For example, to link a virtual tour (using VisualTour.com) REALTOR.com charges me $19.95. But linking that same tour to Zillow is free!

Consumers still prefer REALTOR.com, but only because not enough agents are taking advantage of the free stuff at Zillow. Trust me, that's going to change!

So, if you're a consumer and haven't yet checked out Zillow, you should. And, if you're an agent and haven't checked it out, what are you waiting for?

John Tuccillo was once the chief economist for NAR, a position currently held by Lawrence Yun. I continue to find John's insights some of the most accurate and enlightening out there.

This post on his web site goes through how we got into this mess and what John sees as the prospects going forward. I think it's one of the best analyses I've seen.

One of the most interesting pieces of this is the third point about how large national home builders began to replace family businesses and how they're driven by different economic realities. It's a piece of this puzzle I hadn't heard before and I think it's right on.

I'll be interested in hearing what you think; what John's gotten right and where your opinion differs.

I've been pretty dismissive of much that comes from NAR's chief economist's office. While Lawrence Yun is certainly been much more realistic than his predecessor, he's still too often been a cheerleader rather than an unbiased source for information. It's understandable given who signs his paychecks!

But his latest analysis of what's going on nationwide with home prices is very educational and, I think, gets it mostly right.

Locally, prices continue to decline. But given the sudden increase of activity in the last couple of weeks, I suspect there's some chance we may be getting close to a floor in some areas. (Probably not Culpeper!)