Zillow Inc.

• The popular Zillow Web site is often right when it entertainingly estimates home values. "But when Zillow is bad, it can be terrible -- off the mark by more than 25% on one in 10 homes." But really, how much does $2 million matter in Manhattan real estate? [WSJ via Luxist]
• Can Williamsburg hipsters afford the high-end luxury condos that have covered the neighborhood? (No, because long-banged haircuts take up so much cash these days.) So "renting may be the new buying." [Real Deal]
• Curmudgeon Philip Nobel writes architectural Valentines to Robert A.M. Stern/Yale and Renzo Piano. He writes, no kidding around: "(OMG, this is totally embarrassing!) I have a little critic crush on him. Don't tell." [Metropolis]
- Max Abelson
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So, Newsweek finally jumps on the Zillow bandwagon. Remember the Zillow fervor a few months back? We vaguely do.

Anyway, CFO Spencer Raskoff emphasizes that people might use Zillow for reasons outside of house-hunting.

Zillowers are looking at their boss, ex-wife, the girl they didn't marry. We've heard great stories about people zillowing blind dates or job candidates. I knew we made it when my mother-in-law told me the ladies at her beauty parlor zillowed each other's houses.

Digging up dirt on ex's and potential job applicants, eh? Looks like someone is pitching Zillow as the next Google.

- Michael Calderone

• Almost 300 years of history gets eaten up by eminent domain for the Fulton Street Transit Center project, Lisa Chamberlain of Polis reports. (The New York Times)
• What if information could be physical? What if the memories you associate with that drunken night in the Lower East Side and the office hours of your dentist could be mapped? Now, think on a grander scale. (Searchscapes)
• Geoscientists can look at a photo and name the location from minor details, which is helpful when tracking down terrorists. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists via Archinect)
• The winner of an international condo design competition is from Beijing. The building, however, is planned for ... Mississauga, Ontario! And the building has been nicknamed the Marilyn Monroe. Curves in all the right places.(Toronto Star)
• An architect helps Bostonian achieve his dream: to build a house from garbage. (Boston.com)
• Writers are known for their eccentricities, like raising their children in a slum because it provides "an interesting childhood." (The New York Times)
• Real Estate ABC is the new Zillow. It has adjustable property values. Zillow is probably better. (Curbed)
• Bleecker Street as Saville Row. (New York Post)The Chocolate Secret Suite is a secret hotel room somewhere in Manhattan where you can do something that no one else will ever know about. (UrbanDaddy via Hotel Chatter)
• We seem to have this take-away from at least one story a day: This city doesn't really like poor people. "Since 1990, the city has lost close to 30,000 apartments, a quarter of the apartments created by the largest subsidy programs for families of low and moderate income. And thousands more units are in the process of being de-subsidized right now." (Gotham Gazette)
• Monuments are political. The image they create and the party they seek to remember tell a history of power and money. (Metropolis)

- Riva Froymovich

We were late receiving the press release from Trulia.com and PropertyShark about a reciprocal arrangement to share data (though The Walk-Through got it a couple hours ago).

Here's why they're doing it, according to a statement from PropertyShark founder Matthew Haines:

“As the real-estate data market heats up, with lavishly-funded start-ups like Zillow joining the fray, it is essential that focused players like Trulia and PropertyShark partner to provide consumers and professionals with a soup-to-nuts offering of sales, leads, and property data and tools.”

Combined with this bizarrely written bit of gossip from Inman News, that Zillow is filing for real-estate brokerage licenses in every state, we're starting to think the anticlimactic launch of Zillow wasn't so much an anticlimax as the tip of an iceberg.

In other words: Zillow, forced to launch early, hasn't fully tweaked its data offerings--early disappointments are likely to be corrected; what's more, speculation it was so much less than brokers feared may be premature.

The full press release after the jump.  read more »

At midnight on Feb.  read more »

At midnight on Feb.  read more »

Yesterday, The Observer looked at Richard Barton's new project and whether it should worry Manhattan's elite brokers. But does it even work?

Let's try Bob Guccione's former palace. Since the Corcoran brokers involved wish to keep this a private sale, for serious bidders only, there is no asking price. (However, it was listed at $40 million a few years ago).

For wealthy buyers who are unsure about how much to bid, Zillow offers its easy-to-use Zestimate feature. That is, when the site is running.

According to Zillow, the massive double-wide townhouse at 14-16 East 67th Street is worth $10,690,818! Brokers should have put it up on the market in April, because for some bizarre reason, the townhouse was worth at least $17.3 million.

Next time some Upper East Side broker tries to hustle you, mention Zillow's claim that "99% of homes in the 10021 ZIP code have a value lower than this home." Uh huh.

And how does the rest of the tony block, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, stack up with Zillow.  read more »

Zillow is here.

From what we hear, the pressure-cooker environment in which the launch was being anticipated--and in many cases beaten to the market by prospective competitors--had a lot to do with the sudden launch, initially scheduled loosely for the Spring or thought to be on hold till the Summer.

Look for the whole story in today's editions of the Observer; read their full press release after the jump.

In today's other real estate news:

Johnny Damon settles down, finally. And it's not a Baseball Building, except for Bobby Abreu.

Bob Guccione causes a stir when the hedge fundies that are selling his house list it at $99 million.  read more »

Jana Bullock is up to more of her showhouse zaniness.

- Michael Calderone