Cuts in transit, the slow death of bilingual classes, Zillow goes public and rolling closer to a skate park in Delridge. more ›

That's the stat that jumped out at us from the Seattle Times story on our woozy real estate market; they went with "Nearly 30 percent of all homes sold at a loss at the end of 2008." So says Zillow's quarterly home value report. The King Country assessor's office data shows that "Most homes bought since mid-2005 and sold during the last three months of 2008 fetched lower prices than their owners paid." But that twenty percent underwater worries us because that's a sizable chunk who no longer have the recourse of being able to tap home equity in an emergency. more ›

• John Cook, former newspaper reporter and current blogger at TechFlash.com, lists twelve tech meisters who could save the P-I. Among the illustrious names on the list: Crosscut's David Brewster and Rich Barton, the guy who started Zillow.com.
• Barack Obama must have been such a sweet, angelic child, like baby Jesus only with a bigger halo. Turns out that he lived on our Capitol Hill as a baby, and Capitol Hill Times found his address. Small children residing at 13th & Republican, you too could be President of the United States someday.
• Cameras were rolling at Seacrest in West Seattle this weekend when Tick Tock Productions used the location for six hours to film what was rumored to be a TV pilot. West Seattle Blog has photos of the...er...explosive shoot.

The PI's John Cook offered the best short summary of what's new at Zillow in his Venture Blog today:

Big changes at Zillow.com today, with the company overhauling its Web site to include user-generated for sale listings, a real estate wiki and a new service called "Make Me Move" that allows any home owner to set a dream price for their home on the site.