Fantasy Real Estate Coming Soon – Realius’s Price Me Now Game to be Launched at TechCrunch40

September 15, 2007
By: Drew Meyers
Author's Website: http://virtualresults.net

Realius, which is building a suite of fantasy real estate games, announced that they are unveiling their 1st game — Price Me Now — at the TechCrunch 40 conference. The basic concept of the Price Me Now is to allow people to guess the price of active listings. To do so, the user can analyze recently sold homes data (via Zillow API) and property characteristics and photos (via an IDX feed). From the press release:

Price Me Now(TM) evaluates player guesses and awards points based on their performance against the “Realius” price, an aggregate combination of previous player price estimates and the actual list price. Real estate companies and professionals can purchase placement in the game as “coaches” who guide players and make their own professional price guesses.

I logged into the private BETA this afternoon and think the game has massive potential to bring some fun to real estate. The concept of “coaches” is certainly an interesting way to get real estate professionals engaged, though the success of the program will depend on the volume of active home buyers that are attracted to the site.

Other games currently in development “include include Fantasy Flip(TM), which lets homeowners get community insight for various improvements they make by modifying photos of their homes, and Major League Investor(TM), which pits players against one another as they build fantasy portfolios.”

I was clued into what Realius was doing as a result of a comment the CEO of Realius, Chuck Teller, left on the my blog post about the concept of a fantasy real estate game (the Major League Investor concept mentioned above) over at Zillow Blog. I’ve spoken with Chuck several times as a result of their development with the Zillow API, and actually met him down at Real Estate Connect. It sounds like he has put together a great team and I’m looking forward to reporting on further news from the company as development progresses. I’ll try to do a follow-up post with further thoughts and screen shots early this week (after they present).

It’s pretty safe to say — real estate enthusiasts are going to love Realius.

| More

Stumble it!
Categories: Company News & Analysis

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to the Geek Estate Blog feed or get updates via e-mail

Spencer

very cool

Steve Jagger - Ubertor.com

I'm here at TechCrunch40 - lot of good companies.
I played for a few minutes with the Realius system, it is interesting. Will have to go back in and play with it some more.

magnus

[... Will be interesting to see how it will be used by the RE industry, maybe it will be used...

... at universities
Why not include this game in courses about pricing the real estate market?

... by brokers/appraisals
This is the opportunity for all brokers and appraisals to show that they are better then Zillow to forecast the sales price! ...]

Chuck

Drew: Nice post. Glad you see the massive potential. Our initial testing with consumers indicates that the game is addictive and a great way to draw you into the real estate market. While the beta is hosted on our private site at this time, we will make the game available within any Real Estate brokerage site. This way, our game can make our real estate brokerage partner's sites sticky and engaging. Overall, our plan is to put the game where consumers look for real estate - on brokerage sites and established real estate portals.