Help! The US dollar has plummeted, the stock market has sunk and I’m told housing values are going down faster than the McCain campaign. The only thing increasing is taxes, healthcare premiums and Obama’s ego. Yikes!

While we get bombarded with indices and values on the declining value of our nation’s collective assets, it’s hard to know exactly how much our individual homes are worth. We know that homes here in the Lehigh Valley have dropped 10-15% this year according to experts. We also know that these values can vary widely within the many communities in the Valley.

Enter Zillow. 

Zillow.com is a free website that calculates home values based on a calculated matrix of public data -- home square footage, number of bedrooms, lot size, tax info, school district, location, and other information. Their estimated values are called Zestimates.

Go to www.zillow.com and enter your address up in the “Find Homes” box and click Go. You’ll be immediately overwhelmed with a variety of maps and information. Click the “See home information” link in the text box that points to your home. There you’ll see more specifics about your house. There is all kinds of useful information; charts, data and comps. My home went down $3,000 in the past 30 days, how about yours?

As you probably noticed (you nosey neighbor!) you also see the value of your neighbors’ homes. Remember this is all public info so people are looking at your crib too. You can even check out Bill Gates’s home if you know his address.

Although it offers no commercial real estate values, it can be a valuable tool for real estate investors and business owners.

Sites like these are free and funded by the advertisements of home oriented products like mortgages, home improvement and even selling your home via zillow.com. Just start clicking and play around. You’ll probably get lost in your own neighborhood.