Zillow.com’s big selling point for house hunters is its real estate search function. Type in an address or a zip code and you can get information on houses — sale prices, number of bathrooms, and a slew of other tidbits. You can also get a good overall idea of how much homes are going for in a particular neighborhood.

There are a few tools beyond the standard information that a number of other real estate websites offer up:

• Make Me Move: Home owners can login into Zillow and set a “Make Me Move” price. These houses aren’t actually on the market, but the owners have decided that if a potential buyer offered a certain amount, they’d be willing to sell immediately. This information is valuable far beyond the ability to find out just what it would take to get your dream house. It also gives you a way to move to a particular neighborhood, even if no homes are actually for sale.
• Sellers’ Options: Not only can sellers list their homes for sale on Zillow, they can also edit information about their houses, add photos and generally better inform you, the buyer. All this information is made available with the idea that it will make it easier to sell a house.
• Mortgage Marketplace: Zillow allows potential buyers to request mortgage quotes from a variety of lenders. While I wouldn’t take any of these mortgage offers at face value — a mortgage requires careful scrutiny and one offered up through a site like Zillow needs even further examination — I do think that the “Mortgage Marketplace” can give you a starting point, and perhaps an idea of what you need to do to get a better mortgage (raise your credit score, reduce your debts, etc.).
• Real Estate Searches: Zillow has a wide variety of search options, making it easier to limit your house hunting to a very specific sort of house. You can limit searches by price, neighborhood, the number of bedrooms or bathrooms, or even the size of the lot the house sits on.

Overall, I think Zillow can be a useful tool for getting a general idea of what your options are as you are house hunting. You can get the information necessary to eliminate houses from your list — although there is no substitute for actually going and visiting prospective houses. I especially like the fact that you can save certain information by creating a free account; the less papers to misplace during a house hunt, the better.

But Zillow is not a one stop shop. While it can help you with a house hunt, there is plenty of information not available on this site. Even within the categories of data they make available, there are certain holes: there are, generously, perhaps as many as 3 million houses listed on Zillow, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s nothing. You’ll still have to do some legwork to make sure that you aren’t missing anything in your area.

As you prepare to go house hunting, there is one tool that I can’t recommend enough: a digital camera. Odds are that, during your search for the perfect home, you’ll look at enough houses that they’ll quickly start to melt together in your mind. Photographing a house thoroughly can help you remember which house had the gorgeous wood floors, and which needed new carpeting.

You don’t need a big expensive camera, but it may be worth investing in a large memory card: if you’re checking out several houses in a day, you may want to take lots of photos. As long as your camera has a flash, though, it should work just fine. The flash is especially necessary with an empty house — without plenty of light, your camera may not record all the details of a house. And you should be planning to record details: something small, like the placement of a closet, can be a deciding factor between two houses.

Beyond taking pictures of features that stand out in a house, you’ll want to make sure to get clear shots of anything that would need to be repaired — this sort of information is crucial if you do decide that you want a particular house. You may be able to get the sellers to agree to make repairs before turning the house over to you, of you may be able to convince them to accept a lower price for the house. You will do later walk-throughs in order to ensure that you’re getting a house in good condition, but noting such issues now can save you both time and money in the long run. There are plenty of home owners that had to struggle with previous owners to get even small problems repaired.

As you visit each house, start by taking a picture of the house number or address, so that you can tell where pictures of one house end and the next start. You may always want to take a few pictures of the surrounding houses and areas, just so that you have a memory aide when you start trying to narrow down your selection to one house.

Not all sellers will be comfortable with you taking photos of their homes — even if it’s a house they’re in the process of selling. It is, of course, polite to ask, and, if they ask you not to take pictures, you should refrain from doing so. Some real estate agents may be able to provide you with pictures of homes you are interested in, as well, which can save you some effort. However, those photos are usually shot in such a way as to make a house look as good as possible. A seller may not be trying to hide something, but, as a responsible buyer, it’s up to you to look for (and record, when possible) any potential problems with a house.