Officials at real estate brokerage company ZipRealty see a serious side to a real estate guessing game that allows its clients to weigh in on home values.
The company’s Web site now displays average home-price estimates from its community of users alongside automated home valuations from real estate sites including Zillow.com, Cyberhomes.com and Eppraisal.com.
Beyond the fun aspect of attempting to predict the selling price of actual homes that are now on the market by viewing property details through an integration with real estate gaming company Realius, there is a deeper aspect that the company is tapping: collective intelligence.
"Our contention is that potentially the community will be better at predicting sales prices than maybe the list price," said Myron Lo, director of product strategy at ZipRealty. After all, home buyers play a leading role in the final sales price of homes.
ZipRealty first launched the Realius integration in July (see Inman News), and the display of the community results alongside other valuations was added this month.
Registered ZipRealty users can lend their price guesses on properties in a market of their choosing by clicking on a widget at the side of the ZipRealty Web page.
They are given a score, dubbed an "IQ" based on how their guess compares to others — and that score is updated when the property actually sells.
Lo said another function of the Realius integration is that consumers can get up to speed on home values in the markets where they are searching.
In addition, ZipRealty agents can view clients’ activity with the Realius guessing game to see the types of properties they are rating, for example.
"We really found this was a great educational tool for consumers," Lo said, and "it lets you get inside the heads of consumers."
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