May 2000
The Agenda
How to get the real deal on your home sweet home.
By Sarah Breckenridge

The Shortlist

Whether you're buying, selling or just fantasizing about what your home might fetch in today's overheated real estate market, the Web is bursting with useful information. So get a move on to these four sites: www.homepricecheck.com - Enter an address and get previous sale prices of that and other homes in the area. www.remodeling.hw.net - Will replacing that faded linoleum in the kitchen really pay off? Find out with this site's cost versus value report, which has the national and regional costs for 12 remodeling projects, plus the average percentage owners recoup when they sell their homes. www.coldwellbanker.com - Pick your house up and plunk it down in another city, virtually speaking. This site's Home Price Comparision tool shows how much your home might cost in one of 350 communities in the U.S. and abroad. www.virtualrelocation.com - How does that city you're planning to move to compare with your hometown? Get a side-by-side look at housing prices, property tax rates, auto-insurance costs and more.