Zillow.com launches beta real estate site

On Wednesday, Zillow.com announced the launch of its beta real estate site, offering free, unbiased valuations on more than 40 million homes across the United States, with data on an additional 20 million homes. This includes most homes in the country, not just those for sale. All consumers need to do is enter an address.

In addition to finding a valuation, or Zestimate value for homes, consumers can access and view – for free – an enormous amount of information on individual homes, including:

* Historical value changes for each home, charted over the past year, five years or ten years.
* Historical value changes for each home as compared to its surrounding zip code, city, state or the entire U.S.
* All comparable home sales in an area.
* Satellite, aerial and parcel views of many homes.
* Individual home data, such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, square footage, lot size, stories and year built.

Zillow’s business is advertising-based. Zillow’s consumer offering provides a platform for agents and related real estate providers to advertise their services to consumers who are serious about the home buying and selling process.

Zillow was started by a group of Internet veterans, including Expedia founder and former CEO Rich Barton and former Expedia Senior Vice President Lloyd Frink. Located in Seattle, Zillow raised $32 million in funding from two leading venture capital firms, Benchmark Capital and Technology Crossover Venture (TCV), as well as employees, directors and private investors.