This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

As Utah's real estate market heats up, more home buyers and sellers are turning to Zillow.com, which despite its limitations in the state can provide useful information for buyers and sellers.

On this website, simply type in your address — or anyone else's for that matter — and you can get an estimate of the property's value.

The operative word there is "estimate," because Zillow still isn't very good at providing an accurate snapshot of a home's value in Utah. That's because the so-called Zestimates from a handful of states are skewed by the fact that home selling prices aren't publicly disclosed.

"It's fun to look at but it's not truly accurate information," said Donna Pozzuoli, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

Beyond prices, though, Zillow is a nifty tool in other ways.

For buyers, the website is useful in the search for a new home. There are listing prices and great visuals for those who are interested in relocating to a particular area.

Unlike other sites, such as UtahRealEstate.com, which lists homes for sale and basic photos, Zillow also provides aerial views of individual homes and neighborhoods —I could even see my car in my driveway. In most cases, users also can find information on a home's square footage, the year it was built, lot size, whether it's for sale by owner or agent and what the seller is asking for the property.

In addition there's a history of how the county assessor valued the property over the years.

Zillow, launched in 2006, can be especially useful in providing information on other houses on the same street or nearby streets.

For do-it-yourselfers who want to sell their homes, they can post for free a for-sale-by-owner listing or place a "Make Me Move" price on their home. Either way, potential buyers will see the asking price and can contact the seller directly.

One of my favorite features on Zillow is the homebuying and selling information available under the "Advice" tab, where you can ask a question or start a discussion on a particular topic.

Wonder whether it's normal not to receive a timely response from a bank with which you're negotiating? Can a home be purchased at auction with a home loan? You can get these answers and more. By the way, buying a bank-owned property (also known as real estate owned, or REO) can be an exercise in patience, taking twice as long as a purchase of a nondistressed home. And that question about auctions? Most require cash, although some allow winning bidders to finance their purchases.

Just try to avoid using Zillow to determine an exact buying or selling price because values listed on the site can be too high or too low, depending on the situation. One home in Draper, for example, that recently sold in June for $475,000 has a "Zestimate" of $450,000. Another home in the same neighborhood sold for $339,000, yet Zillow has a value of $402,000 for the property.

Even though Zillow has become more useful to Utahns in recent years, it still can't list selling prices, which are the only real way to determine property values. Realtors in Utah aren't required to publicly disclose home sales data for individual properties — the only information that's publicly disclosed are selling prices and unit sales by Zip code area, and only along the Wasatch Front.

Because Zillow doesn't have broad access to selling-price data in Utah, the site uses other sources of information — most likely county property valuations — to determine values (although Zillow won't be specific about it sources.) Also accessible is mortgage information — although that tells you only the size of the mortgage taken out to purchase the property, not what was paid).

So, use Zillow to aid in your search, not for settling on a price.

Lesley Mitchell writes One Cheap Chick in daily blog form at blogs.sltrib.com/cheap.

lesley@sltrib.com Twitter: @cheapchick Facebook: Facebook.com/OneCheapChick —

Zillow.com

The popular real estate website has a proprietary system for determining real estate values nationwide.