Zillow’s Zindex of historic Bedrock shows significant gains

Bedrock notables Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble both saw gains in the Zestimates for their homes, with Rubble seeing the bigger increase -- 2.8%. The Flintstone home grew in value by a more modest 2.3%.

Even so, there are whispers in Bedrock that the Flintstones could be facing foreclosure. Due to a labor dispute with Mr. Slate, Fred Flintstone has not worked in months. And county records indicate that the family may have encumbered the home for more than its present value.

"That's a condition we at Zillow call 'underwater,'" said Dr. Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics. "We like to use that term because it gets better headlines than 'upside-down.'"

The Zillow Zindex of Bedrock is one of many recent press sensations concocted by Zillow.com, the Seattle-based real estate start-up funded by advertising but powered by sensational, albeit utterly mindless gossip.

Other recent revelations from the Zillow press release team:

* The White House, which is not and has never been listed for sale, could be worth as much as $308,058,237.19 if it were. And as huge as that imaginary number might be, and as carefully-extracted as it must have been from a Zillow statistician's rectum, nevertheless that number would have been even $23 million higher a year ago. And while reporters might be wondering how far 308 million dollar bills would stretch, if you placed them end-to-end, Zillow's crack team of mathematicians-on-crack have taken on an even more impressive challenge: How much would the White House be worth on Jupiter?

* Ever wonder which celebrity Americans might want to live next door to, if there were no such thing as physics, economics and burly security details? Zillow didn't just stop at wondering, it asked Americans who they'd love to shoot the breeze with over the ol' back fence. The winner? Alaska Governor and failed Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Zillow's pollsters did not ask who was going to shovel America's snow, after it moved to Alaska, because that would have taken the fun out of everything.

* There are massive layoffs in the imaginary caviar industry. Imaginary champagne is being poured by the barrel straight into the sewers. Imaginary yacht-makers are going belly-up all along the briny main. Why? Because American homeowners lost an imaginary $2 trillion on their homes in 2008. After their recent gains of an imaginary $3 trillion, the imaginary $5 trillion reversal has sent then entire imaginary luxury goods market into a tailspin.