Zillow is a very neat and incredibly useful website where you can find a value estimate for many homes. Of course, for official numbers you’ll need to talk to an appraiser. But Zillow has enough real estate and property tax data, and enough smarts, that it seems to be able to make very reasonable estimates based on comparables.

I’m using Zillow right now as one gauge for when I should refinance. My wife and I bought our home using two mortgages, and between our payments, improvements we’ve done, and the growth in our home’s value, I hope to reach the magic 20% equity point in a couple of years (provided the housing market doesn’t collapse).

Check it out! I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised at your house’s value, but even if not, it’s useful information.

Tags: appraisal, appraiser, comparables, equity, finance, home, house, housing-market, mortgage, personal-finance, property, real-estate, refinance, tax, tool, value, Zillow