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Find out what your home is worth

This post on the FREAKONOMICS BLOG, pointed me to a really cool site, Zillow.com.  Type in any address or zip code and it will show you the house on a satellite picture along with the house’s estimated value.  In addition you can search for recent comparable sales – sales of recent houses with similar specifications in the same neighborhood along with their sale price!   

You have got to try this website out – find out your home’s value.  Realtors are going to have to work hard to show their value!

Two notes:

  • Not all areas are covered yet.  I found my home in Colorado but I couldn’t find any data for home values  in South Dakota.
  • It actually showed our home in the right spot.  Google and Yahoo maps usually think our house is half way down the block from where it really is.
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What do you carry with you?

What do you carry with you … to work?  to the store?  to a friend’s house?  I bet you carry more around now than you did 10 years ago. 

On any work day, I carry a briefcase with my laptop, notebook and odds and ends like business cards, vitamins, pens, etc as well as a water bottle and a plastic bag with my lunch in it.  (They don’t fit in the briefcase – I’ve been shopping for a bigger one.)  If I have class that day, I have a bookbag I also carry that has a change of clothes as well as my books … oh and don’t forget the snacks and the novel. 

This Washington Post article, Burdens of the Modern Beast, talks about how we are all carrying a lot more around with us.  It doesn’t really theorize as to why although through quotes it alludes to the fact that we are all insecure and worried and all of our stuff is our security blanket.

I think we carry lots around with us for two reasons.  One, we are too busy.  I don’t have time to come home for lunch or go out to lunch, so I carry lunch.  I certainly don’t have time to come home between work and school so the change of clothes and the bookbag have to come with me.  Two, we are consumers.  Can you imagine going 3-4 hours without a bottle of water, a soda or a Starbucks coffee??