Until now. As you read this, invisible real estate microwaves may be passing through your body, making sure ordinary life (the job, the kids, the headaches) is never far from the information about that house you might buy, the home you might sell.

Paranoid? I may have whiffed one too many hot-off-the-color-printer open-house brochures, but recently I noticed a couple real estate services that seem to bring the spectacle of real estate to a whole new level.

One, a technology called Talking House, by giving a house its own radio channel transmitted from a box in the garage to anyone within 300 feet of the home, allows you to tune into a detailed description of a house without even getting out of your car.

I noticed my first Talking House last month at 473 Andover St., in Bernal Heights, when I spotted a rather goofy-looking sign reading "Talking House: Tune into 1670 AM." Outside, the dwelling looked like a plain-Jane Marina-style, two-bedroom home over a one-car garage. But the Talking House set me straight: Encompassing 2,300 square feet on a double lot, the house boasts two more bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs behind the garage and a giant rumpus room that opens out onto a deck and the L-shaped yard. "If you like country living, then this home's for you," said the recording by listing agent Monique Wong-Lee. "It's a dog lover's dream."

Although Talking House has been popular in other parts of the country for some time, it's just arriving in the Bay Area. (No doubt this is because we need no extra bells and whistles to appreciate the spectacle.)

"I haven't gotten to use it that much," said Wong-Lee. "By the time the listing's up, we're already getting offers."

Talking House has been around since the mid-'90s, when Richard Matthew, a Wisconsin real estate agent who had developed the technology for his own listings, began selling the service to agents around the country. Transmitters run between $250 and $350 apiece depending on the number sold; most agents buy seven to 15 according to the volume of their listings. In a way, it's just another marketing tool in a dog-eat-dog business in which individual free agents are always trying to distinguish themselves from the crowd. But, in another way, it also reflects how real estate has come to represent far more than simply a sales transaction -- it's entertainment.

"It's like a movie trailer," says Talking House spokesman Mark Goulais. "It's not a virtual tour, but a way to tell people about special features of the house and get them in the door."

The Talking House Web site offers tips for writing scripts for the transmitter, some of which read like curriculum from a stand-up school for real estate professionals. Some sample scripts are written in the first person. "Help me!" goes one suggested script. "I am over here. Can you see me? I once was a beautiful home. Can you help me?"

If the anthropomorphizing of the house isn't theatrical enough, to Hollywoodize the experience of home shopping, the company also markets voice impressions of celebrities ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Three Stooges. You can even order up a sputtering Dr. Ruth impersonation: "Hello, sweetheart! It's Dr. Truth! Today, (fill in agent's name) of (fill in real estate company) will answer all your questions about what you need to do to find a house that will stimulate you!" or an excited Bill Clinton: "My fellow American, I'm so anxious to tell you about this house, I can hardly keep my pants on."

In San Francisco, where every godforsaken hovel commands royal prices, real estate agents may shy away from offering a knee-slapping portrayal of a fixer-upper. "I use my own voice," says Ken Glidewell of Pacific Union, who bought three transmitters last year. "I stay a little more on the professional side." He admits, however, that he might use celebrity voices some time in the future.

If Talking Houses appeals to the compulsive looky-loos who don't have time to get out of their car, then HomeRadar.com is ideal for what might be coined the recreational comp runner. In the old days, obtaining comps for your house meant engaging the services of a real estate agent. Now, however, every Tom, Dick and Mary can speak authoritatively at cocktail parties on the topic of the hour: what his or her home is worth.

And it seems that's precisely what they are doing. A few weeks ago, I hosted a dinner party with some neighbors, and, naturally, the conversation turned to the increasingly obscene price of homes on the block. When a bunch of people started trading stats from HomeRadar.com, I felt a quickening sea change in my gut. Surreal estate fever is spreading. These laypeople know more than I do!

That night, I looked up the site, a free online service sponsored by credit-report company Consumerinfo.com. The search engine scans nearly 4 million records from 300 counties, offering instantly available real estate snapshots. Plug in any address and ZIP code or city and state, add search criteria of a geographic radius between 0.25 miles and 3 miles and a time frame of two to 24 months, and you can instantly pry into your neighbor's business, calculate your dying uncle's estate value and compile the comps to convince yourself to cash out.

No doubt HomeRadar.com will be fueling real estate recreation for some time. But it's interesting to note that there are those for whom this cultural preoccupation has begun to wear thin.

"It's all people want to talk about," Pacific Union's Ken Glidewell told me. "I went to a dinner party the other night, and everyone was asking what their home was worth. It was strange. Of course, it's the last thing I wanted to talk about. Can't we just talk about the movies anymore?"

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