Realius gets in the real estate game

The events of the past year in the real estate world are no laughing matter -- as an already slumping market has been hammered by a rising tide of foreclosures and liquidity problems in the mortgage sector -- but the creators of an online site for real estate games are hoping to lighten things up.

Realius.com is expected to launch in about six to eight weeks and will feature its flagship Price Me Now game, which allows users to guess at home values by viewing photos and property details of actual homes via real estate brokerage companies that subscribe to online MLS data feeds (see Inman News article). Players are scored based on how their valuations compare to the average valuation of other users (think "Wisdom of Crowds").

Company founders are demonstrating the game site today and tomorrow at a DemoPit during the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco. The primary group of companies presenting at that conference includes a range of startups with some colorful names, among them: BeFunky, Orgoo, Ponoko, Viewdle, Wixi, Woome, Xobni and a couple of new "Z" words: Zivity and ZocDoc.

The Realius folks are hoping that the soft-sell approach to real estate -- give consumers some games to play based on real properties and maybe they will decide to connect with real estate agents and brokers who are also using the site -- will score with buyers, sellers and real estate professionals alike, even in a tough market.

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