Jim Carey better watch out. In the 33rd edition of the Carnival of Real Estate, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy gives him a run for his money as he plays - what else? - a man consumed by the the number 33.

This entertaining post bestows one of this week’s top award awards to an equally entertaining entry: John Harper’s ‘DYPS - Agent Personalities‘. Who knew that Daffy Duck might be my Realtor one day? (Note - thanks to Jay Thomspon for highlighting my lack of poker prowess and helping me correct this post!)

Among my favorites this week are Cliff Jacobson’s ‘It’s not about the House‘ and Daniel Rothamel’s ‘Do Inspired Work‘. Both serve to remind us that real estate isn’t all about transactions, but more importantly the people behind those transactions.

I hope Daffy remembers that when it comes time for me to buy a home.

Live from Las Vegas, Trulia interviews Steve Barnes, President & COO of Coldwell Banker United, the largest Coldwell Banker Affiliate in the world in closed transactions. Steve talks to Trulia about everything from his early adoption of everything Internet, how CB United managed to reduce its print budget by 25% every year for the past three years while growing traffic to CBUnited.com by ~500%, the company’s struggle with lead conversion and how it plans to fix it and, finally, how excited the company is about the BIG partnership between Realogy (Coldwell Banker’s parent company) and Trulia.

This interview also kicks off our new relationship with WellcomeMat.com - the YouTube for real estate. Check out the cool chaptering feature!

I heard every decade has its own housing bugaboo–the evil scary thing homebuyers are obsessed with when looking at home inspection reports. The 1980s had asbestos and radon gas, the 1990s had lead-based paint, and it seems the inspection scare du jour is mold.

Sure, mold (and asbestos and lead and radon gas and some exotic Madagascar millipedes) can be toxic and dangerous to your health, especially if you have allergies. But these days, it can also be used to get a free kitchen remodel.

My lovely townhome in Southern California is about one mile from the Pacific Ocean, and its front windows all get a lovely ocean breeze (we were lucky enough to get a unit that faces south-west). Does it have mold? Is the Pope catholic? Of course it has mold. The only place in the US that doesn’t have water- and airborne mold is probably Death Valley, and even there I’m sure you can find sneaky little spores making home sellers miserable.

What does this have to do with kitchen remodels? Well, if there’s mold in the house you’re trying to buy, you can get an estimate from your mold inspector that conveniently includes ripping up the kitchen walls, cabinets and countertops, and even appliance removal and replacement. And of course you make that estimate known to me, pointing out my house is uninhabitable in its current condition, but that you still want to close ASAP, so could I please send over $7K immediately so we can proceed with our KILLER MOLD ERADICATION, thank you kindly?

Some say mold can cause fatigue and asthma. I say it enhances creativity and may even have mild hallucinogenic effects. I’ll have a pound of that, over easy, please.

The developers over at digital1 built truDat spent a few days building a mashup with the Trulia API - and it made “Mashup of the Day” over at programmableweb.com.

TruDat is a simple to use Mashup that allows you to sort through the data supplied by trulia.com to understand price and inventory trends. TruDat also incoporates a images from flickr.com. One special aspect in the User Interface design is the colum navigation control created by David Lindquist (ColumnNav). The column navigation control circles through the user interface hiding the information that is no longer needed.

Check it out and be sure to let us know if you build a mashup of your own!

It’s is an exciting day for all of us at Trulia–and we think its a great day for home buyers, sellers, brokers and agents.

That’s because today we announced a strategic marketing agreement with Realogy Corporation, the largest real estate franchisor and owner and operator of residential real estate brokers in the U.S, to put more than 500,000 of their affiliate real estate listings on Trulia.com.

Translation: Consumers will now be able to easily search and find their dream home on Trulia.com from top brokerage brands including Coldwell Banker®, ERA©, CENTURY 21® and NRT Inc. (a Realogy subsidiary), and then be directed to the complete property information on their respective Web sites. Realogy brands are involved in every third residential transaction in the U.S.

For real estate professionals, Trulia is focused on boosting online home buyer traffic not only to Realogy’s network of 320,000 brokers and sales associates but also to our existing broker partners. How much? In our four-month trial with ERA last year, they reported that 15 percent of search portal traffic to ERA.com originated from Trulia. We aim to meet and exceed these expectations for all of our broker partners by delivering more robust home search tools and continued growth of our user base, now resulting in more than two million buyers sent to Trulia broker partners each month.

Realogy’s decision to work with Trulia is another positive sign that real estate franchisors and brokerages are embracing the opportunity to reach home buyers where they are searching online, offering scalable marketing solutions like Trulia.com where they receive the benefit of free traffic with no effort on the part of their franchisees or agents. See the full press release here.

Onward!

Colts quarterback Peyton Manning must still be riding high after his recent Super Bowl victory against the Bears. But imagine if you will: Peyton Manning, living in Decatur, Illinois as a die-hard Bears fan.

Yes, it’s true – although this Peyton Manning isn’t a Super Bowl MVP.

Poor Scott Wiese swore that he would legally change his name to Peyton Manning if his beloved Bears lost - and he’s keeping his word. Not only has Scott started the legal process to change his name, he also has to advertise his intention in a local newspaper so the judge will give his ok for the switch. Rough.

Sounds like a very tough loss, but Chicago fans shouldn’t despair. After all, Chicago is still a “hot city” according to Trulia. Although come to think of it, when you pit Chicago against Indianapolis in Truliaholic (our newest mashup developed with the Trulia API) it looks like Chicago’s popularity is waning a bit after the big game.

I have to admit, I’ve always wondered if there is a relationship between real-estate popularity and sports. It seems fair to think that Chicago home-buyers are more likely to become Chicago sports fans and the reverse seems true as well. After all, if Scott Weise is willing to change his identity to support his team, consider all those who would change their residence to do so.

So is it just a simple coincidence that Indianapolis’ popularity on Trulia shot up a bit after their big win while Chicago’s took a hit after their big loss? Maybe not.

Anyone care to make a wager on the NCAA Title?