Searching for mortgage rates? Yahoo's here to help

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) launched its redesigned Yahoo! Real Estate site and I like! I may not live in the U.S., but it sure was fun to look at $3,000,000 houses in Sedona, Arizona and find that I'd only need to pay $17,995.07 in mortgage payments a month if I took a $2,995,000 mortgage over 30 years at 6.02%.

Joking aside, this new site combines some of Yahoo!'s best features. It makes good use of Yahoo! Maps (the best map service offered on the net in my opinion), a comprehensive mortgage calculator, user reviews from Yahoo! Local, aerial neighborhood views as well as home valuations.

It's true, latest housing figures indicate the housing market may be cooling down, but as Tom and Sheldon pointed out, it is still a very lucrative market. Yahoo! seems to have realized it, too, and wants to take advantage of all those buyers and sellers out there. On the redesigned site, Yahoo! offers a slew of resources and features from What's My Home Worth?, Rent vs. Own Calculator to Trend Graphs.

Naturally, from an investor's point of view, ads revenue is what counts. There seems to be plenty of potential here too. There are useful partners ads to the side of the searches as well as sponsored links at the bottom.

Yet, over the last year Yahoo! Real Estate slipped in ranking from 5th place to 9th in the most-visited real estate sites. I hope the revamp can help Yahoo! Real Estate climb up the rankings again and gain more ad revenue in this sector as well.