I use Zillow to track my "equity"....it's sinking fast.  It was, at one time, $336,000.  As of today, my house is worth $259,500....and to be honest, I bet I couldn't even sell it for that, even though I've made improvements.  I paid $165,000 back in '03.   I'm just glad we're not backwards on the loan...and I feel sorry for those who refied to the max and are stuck with what they owe today.   

As a young professional patiently waiting the last two years to buy blue=awesome.  My condolences to those who thought lending companies had rewritten the rules of economics.  I think the most telling experience I had was at a local supermarket, the family in front of me made their purchases with foodstamps.  Fair enough, people gotta eat.  I bought just a couple items and found the same group piling into a brand new Escalade (a car I would never buy, even on an engineer's salary).  As I got in my car I realized they were heading into a nearby neighborhood, so I played creepy guy for a bit to see where they went.  Sure enough they parked at a McMansion on the NW side, near where I am currently renting.

An Escalade, a McMansion (undoubtedly purchased during the bubble) and Lord knows what else inside and people think the problem is $3.50 gas.

Like I said... pickins for me.

Zillow is a very inaccurate real estate site, it has almost a 90 day lag and is always inaccurate in comps on the high side, if you are using Zillow knock off between 7-9% and you are close but behind in fresh data.Also note that Zillow uses the foreclosed loan amount rather than the actual value of the unit and is unreliable as a real "value" for comps.