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 Trulia.com
Listings source: Brokers, agents, Web vendors and MLS; an average of roughly 2 million listings at any given time; updated daily based on feeds from brokers and agents.
Pros: Site loads quickly; user-friendly interface; search results include foreclosures; local real estate guides with detailed market trends, schools overview and community information.
Cons: No for-sale-by-owner listings; may not include all MLS systems.
Coolest features: By signing up for an account, you can save a list of homes interested in, write and store notes on your favorite homes, and subscribe to e-mail alerts to learn of new listings matching your criteria. Use heat maps to learn the current number of listings, average price and higher/lower home price areas within a state or area of state. Trulia Voices section allows users to post questions for buyers, brokers, sellers and locals to answer.
Zillow.com
Listings source: Brokerages, real estate agents and homeowners; more than 1 million current listings; providers with automated feeds have updates pushed to Zillow.com nightly (for listings posting manually, update time depends on the source).
Pros: Pleasant user interface; comprehensive listing information posted, but you can choose to view it on the listing broker's site instead; registered users can keep track of favorite homes and contributions made to the Zillow community; page views chart at the bottom of each listing shows how many times it has been viewed compared to how many listings have been viewed this month and total in the same ZIP code, city, county and state; Zestimate (Zillow's home value estimate) available on many listings); compare, sort and contrast home through comps; discussions section allows you to connect with other Zillow users.
Cons: No contact information given for someone needing to contact the company privately -- feedback button brings you to a "Suggestions" thread in discussions (posted user problems tend to be complaints about incorrect listings information and how home values were determined).
replacecontent-tcm:8-16909 Coolest features: Heat maps display at a town or broader level where the most and least expensive homes tend to be; Make Me Move searches, which turn up homes that aren't actually on the market whose owners have named a price they would consider moving for; Home Q&A feature allows you to post a question about an individual home for agents, homeowners, neighbors or anyone to answer (e.g., How's the commute downtown from here? Is there a park nearby to walk the dog?).
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