HouseValues has a nearly useless and manipulative value proposition for consumers looking to get a fix on the value of their property: if you’re dumb enough to give us your name, address and other qualifying information, we’ll sell it to the first real estate agent(s) who are willing to pay us for access to the ZIP code of your property. We may also sell it to mortgage brokers and insurance agents. That’s our call. And we won’t guarantee you anything about any of those people. We won’t even guarantee that they’re properly licensed. They may be scum – that’s your problem, not ours.

The HouseValues value proposition is not so bad for some real estate agents, especially those who don’t have a good reputation, or a strong firm to generate leads: access to a stream of leads, some qualified, some not.

Zillow is a much-heralded site that offers home sellers and home buyers easy and free access to detailed property valuation information without their having to register or give up any personal information to get it.

Zillow came in amazingly close on the value of the one property I looked at, a $1.7 million listing in Chicago’s DePaul area.

Zillow vs HouseValues: something for nothing or next to nothing for something. Looks like an easy choice.

Our Yo Chicago site is competing with HouseValues for some of your ad dollars, and may be competing with Zillow when they firm up their revenue model, so our take may be a bit biased.