How much was the house? Everybody knows now: Nosy neighbors going online to 'Zillow' property prices

The U.S. housing market may be cooling off, but the nation'sobsession with real estate shows no signs of abating.

Just as spurned lovers use Google to monitor the ex, real estatefanatics are tapping into new Web sites that tell them instantly whatfriends, neighbors and co-workers paid for their houses. As the sitesgain traffic, home price voyeurism is reaching new heights. In armingnosy searchers with a key financial metric, these sites are pullingback the curtain on one of the last private aspects of American life.

Earlier this year, RealEstate ABC.com and Zillow.com startedproviding free access to historical purchase prices, estimates ofcurrent values, square-footage and aerial images of houses across thecountry. (It's even spawned a new verb: to "Zillow" one's neighbors.)The information, available for tens of millions of homes, comes fromgovernment records and other suppliers of public data, with estimatesof a home's current values coming from the sites' own calculations.Inquiring minds need nothing more than an address.

'THEY PAID $780,000 FOR THIS'

With the new tools, consumers are going on a snooping spree.Philip Koss says he has keyed in his own home, searched friends'places -- even Zillowed his boss. Recently, after receiving aninvitation to dinner at the new home of some friends in Pasadena,Calif., he and his wife searched that address, too. Before dinner, asthe friends showed off their small fixer-upper, Koss and his wifestruggled to contain their disbelief. After the tour, his wife leanedover to confide: "I can't believe they paid $780,000 for this thing."

Real estate sites say they're only making available data that wasalready public. And as many home voyeurs have learned, the sites'information can be far from complete.

The information, however, still has the capacity to shock. KeithRichman says he drew a "double stare" when he commented on the largesize of a former colleague's childhood home at a meeting last month.Richman had the ex-co-worker's parents in his address book, andsearched their house before their meeting. Said Richman, a 33-year-old chief executive of a Los Angeles Internet company: "He looked atme like I was a stalker."