Let’s face it, we’ve gone from a time when real estate was a completely offline venture to a time where online real estate tools couldn’t be more important.  The only problem is the online tools we’d like to use are often confusing and not always known for being accurate.  Fortunately, there is a good assortment of quality online real estate tools available.  Here’s a few stand out favorites…

What’s the Value Anyway?

While many are familiar with Zillow these days, the concept of valuating a home online is still new for many.  Zillow is cool because it not only shows you an estimated value and other data for an address you type in, but it also gives you estimated values of all of the neighboring homes.  Plus, it allows you to visualize the homes and neighborhoods on aerial photo maps.

Many for sale homes in popular markets have their own listings on Zillow with pictures and fully detailed profiles.  This makes exploring a neighborhood especially easy if you assume that many of the properties will be of similar prices, styles, and features.

Zillow is roughly accurate, but as with any value estimation tool, the numbers are provided basically “for entertainment purposes only.”  Another pitfall – Zillow only covers the major markets.  Good luck finding data for a rural property.

Searching For a Home?

While searching for a home on the internet is now the most common way to begin the quest of buying a new home, there is yet to be a definitive and nationwide resource that consolidates all listings from all markets to a single point on the internet.

That said, REALTOR.com®, the official site of the National Association of REALTORS®, is probably the most complete and reliable home search resource currently available.  It covers markets, large and small, across the nation with at least minimum basic profiles of homes.  Most listings actually have increased detail.

While the site has been around for quite awhile and might not be comparable with the trendiest web 2.0 style sites, it still out does even the best of the 2.0 bunch with it’s sheer amount of listings.   Also, the site does appear to be developing more interactive features, maps, and search abilities.

Selling Your Own Home?

For Sale By Owners, look no further.  Iggys House is a really cool way for the do it yourself crowd to get their home listed on the MLS for free.  This not only puts you in front of the professionals, but it allows you much of the same access to home searchers as the pros have.  Putting your details on Iggys House will place your for sale property on REALTOR.COM®, AOL, MSN, and many other sites too.

Included as part of the free listing package is the ability to show off your home’s details with all of the videos and photos you can post.  Another very innovative and worthwhile feature to explore is the toll free phone number and voicemail provided at no cost for your listing.  You just can’t beat Iggys House when it comes to a free online real estate tool that actually works for sellers.