In 2005 Rich Barton, ’89, and Lloyd Frink, ’87, were each buying homes when it struck them: why shouldn’t consumers have access to the same information and tools that real estate professionals use? So in early 2006 the two ex-Expedia.com execs launched Zillow, an online database of property valuations that anyone—buyers, sellers or their agents—can use for free. Zillow now has data for some 70 million U.S. homes, including a few that should be familiar to Stanford folks.
Google Incubator, Menlo Park
4 bd / 3 ba / 1,880 sq ft
“Zestimate”: $1,283,523
Claim to fame: Google employee No. 18 Susan Wojcicki bought the house for about $600,000 in 1998. To help pay the mortgage, she rented the garage to two Stanford students—Sergey Brin, MS ’95, PhD ’98, and Larry Page, MS ’98 —for $1,700 a month. The house that hatched Google was purchased by the company last year for an undisclosed sum.
Touch of Grey, Palo Alto
6 bd / 1.5 ba / 2,732 sq ft
“Zestimate”: $1,829,202
Claim to fame: Rob Levitsky owns more than a dozen houses in Palo Alto, each named after a Grateful Dead song. He purchased the first, Terrapin Station, in 1982, and for the past two decades he’s rented almost exclusively to Stanford students. The average monthly rent for a room in a Dead House: $600.
Hoover Cottage, Stanford
2 bd / 1 ba / 1,406 sq ft
“Zestimate”: $1,327,895
Claim to fame: In 1933 the house was the scene of the brutal death of Allene Lamson, ’26, MA ’28. Her husband, former Chaparral editor David Lamson, ’25, was tried and sentenced for the crime, though ultimately acquitted. While in prison he penned the bestselling 1935 book We Who Are About to Die.
