Home price is what? Ask your watch

Can I afford to live here? The answer to that question, which might be San Francisco’s most burning, can soon be found on residents’ wrists thanks to an Apple Watch app from Zillow.

When buyers get their hands on the watch, starting Friday, they’ll be able to download the Seattle real estate company’s app and size up the estimated cost of nearby property — without unearthing an iPhone.

“It knows where you are and you can glance at ( the value of ) nearby homes,” said Jeremy Wacksman, Zillow’s vice president of marketing.

It’s hard to imagine people in San

Francisco, where real estate is so competitive that many homes go for more than their asking price, won’t take pleasure ( if they own a home) or pain ( if they don’t) in checking Zillow’s estimates as they stroll.

Homes in the Bay Area are selling faster than anywhere in the United States, Trulia said last week. Only 26 percent of San Francisco homes are still on the market after two months, at a median asking price of $ 1,099,000.

Oakland and San Jose aren’t far behind, with 30 percent of homes still on the market after two months, at $ 598,000 and $ 800,000 median asking prices, respectively.

Zillow has built a name for itself with its property estimates — and the company has pushed to turn the maps into mobile services. For those in the market for a house, Zillow already sends mobile notifications when prices drop, and when a new home is listed in selected neighborhoods.

The watch app will send those notifications to the wrist, along with its value estimates, Wacksman said.

App developers have been hesitant to wade into the Apple Watch market: It’s not clear, exactly, what people want in a wrist app, or whether the device will even take off.

Neither Facebook nor Pinterest — big players in mobile phone apps — were ready to make apps available to reviewers two weeks ago, The Chronicle reported. Twitter and Evernote let reviewers peek at their apps, but got mixed reviews.

Wacksman said the Apple Watch is a logical place for Zillow to be: Many of company’s biggest devotees are in the market for a home.

Those people want a lot of information, and in many cases, a lot of notifications, he said.

But for those purposes, is a watch really better than an iPhone?

“The whole purpose of having the watch is as an extension of your Apple ecosystem, and having a device that fits into your natural way — not having to pull your phone out of your pocket,” Wacksman said.