Real estate website Zillow released the results of a survey on homeowners’ perceptions last week. While we’re all aware of the difficulties facing the housing market these days, Zillow’s survey revealed some nuances that you should be aware of — especially if you’re thinking of buying a new house any time soon.

According to the survey, 62 percent of US homeowners believe that their home’s value has increased or stayed the same in the past year. That’s a phenomenal number, especially when you consider that 77 percent of US homes have declined in value in the last 12 months. Homeowners realize that house prices have dropped, but the majority of the same set of homeowners just don’t think it could happen to them.

This can cause some problems when these homeowners decide to sell. It seems like every seller thinks that they can get at least what they paid for their home — and they’re willing to hold out for it, at least for a little while. For buyers, it’s an added complication in the process. It’s not a good idea to be the first person to put in an offer these days.

There is also a problem for homeowners themselves: many are counting on their home value to help when they take out a second mortgage, home equity line of credit or refinance their mortgage in an effort to handle other financial issues. Zillow’s survey also showed that over half of homeowners are planning home improvements — ranging from minor projects like repainting to major projects like installing a new roof.

The same perceptional problem is reflected in where most homeowners think the market is going, as well. Zillow reports that 75 percent of homeowners expect their home’s value will increase or stablize in the next six months — but 42 percent think that home values in their area will decrease. It will happen to the neighbor’s house — not mine.

Whether or not you currently own a home, these numbers are worth considering. Plenty of people think that right now is a great time to buy a house, due to the lowered prices. But these same people seem to believe that there will be a fairly immediate rebound in the housing market.

If you’re shopping for a new home, it’s worth focusing on a long-term plan rather than thinking about the current low prices. You don’t want to wind up in that 62 percent of homeowners that really don’t know what’s going on with their home’s value (and don’t want to know). You want to make a solid financial decision and make a plan that will allow you to ride out the bumps in the housing market with minimal worries. That means doing some research before buying a house.

You don’t need to be a real estate expert, but it’s worth your while to learn some of the factors that contribute to a house’s value — including the fact that if there is a downward trend among housing prices in a certain neighborhood, it applies to all the houses in that area. Your home-to-be will not be an exception, unfortunately. But there are also other factors that contribute to the value of a home.

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.