My brother showed me a cool site (zillow.com), where you can type in any address (in the U.S.??) and it gives you an estimated value of the house. Great tool for eye shopping – and besides telling you how much the house is worth, it tells you how many bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage. Lets you know what neighborhoods you can’t afford…As we drove around LA today, I made note of different addresses and checked them when we got home – even the crummiest houses in LA go for $750,000!!
btw, although we initially thought the house prices sounded inflated, this site quoted my own house within $2000 of the price I bought it for four months ago. Not bad. We tried most of my childhood homes in Virginia and Maryland too. Looks like everything has about doubled in price.