After the recent announcement of our partnership with Yahoo! Real Estate in which we provide Yahoo! with Zestimates, comparable homes and Zindex data, we Zillow Lab rats began tossing around ideas about how to further showcase information on home values to Yahoo! users. We landed on the idea of a Yahoo! Widget. What’s a widget? It’s a mini-application that runs on your desktop. (Try to download a few — they’re addicting.)
OK, back to our little creation. Once you install Yahoo!’s Widget Engine and then download our “Desktop Zestimate” widget, you can get instant Zestimates and view changes in the value of homes from your desktop. You can also make a specific home your default and have its Zestimate loaded into the widget each time you start your computer. And get this: You can even set it so you get an audio version of the Zestimate. An audio Zestimate… how cool is that? We now have Zestimates for two senses: seeing and hearing!
If you’re a home owner, Desktop Zestimates are a fun way to keep track of the value of your home or any other homes you’re interested in. You can even use it to find out the Zestimate for your favorite Famous Homes.
Read the step-by-step instructions on how to get this widget loaded onto your PC or Mac.
Have fun!
P.S. The name “Brian” on the widget page is Brian Ma, the Project Manager for the widget. I’m not quite sure how he gets all the glory and I do all the work. But, oh well…