Comments on: my-currency Crowdsources Home Valuations

By: realius blog - Live from Inman TV

realius blog - Live from Inman TV — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:51:44 +0000

[...] at the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in New York at the beginning of 2008, Joel Burslem interviewed me about Realius. The interview covers the company vision and early results from our [...]

By: realius blog - Price Me Now Players Know Best

realius blog - Price Me Now Players Know Best — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:56:01 +0000

[...] We know we are not the first to apply wisdom of the crowds to real estate. Joel over at Future of Real Estate Marketing covered the debut of MyCurrency last year. [...]

By: House Review

House Review — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 02:34:35 +0000

[...] my-currency is a site that launches later this week at the DEMO conference in Palm Desert, California. It’s hoping to out-Zillow a Zestimate by tapping into social media; blogs, wikis and user generated content to help finesse a home’s value.The idea is that the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ will be far more accurate than any machine generated valuation. Like a fantasy stock market game, users are encourage to estimate the value of a home, to place a “trade�? and vote whether they think the price is too high or too low. They then get points on how accurate their prediction is based on the final selling price of the home.accuracy of the CrowdValueTM of the home will get closer and closer to the “real�? value of the home. Real estate professionals are also encouraged to get involved in the process so they can demonstrate their local market expertise.Over time, so the theory goes, the true experts will begin to appear.I like the concept, but I see a few problems with the model right off the bat.An accurate assessment of a home’s value really requires first hand observation of the property. Unlike stocks, whose value can be predicted on financial figures, past performance, etc. – a home’s value is much harder to determine over the Internet and really requires (to borrow a metaphor) “boots on the ground�?. This is one of the big criticisms of Zillow’s AVM model – the so-called “Unzillowable�? factor.my-currency’s model requires crowd participation to estimate a home’s value, but I’m not sure how qualified the average user is to make an assessment of a home’s value. Even for the most web savvy among them, just looking at comparable sales and past performance of the neighborhood can only be one part of the equation and I think it’d be tough to find much more information on a home by simply surfing the Net and not seeing it in person.That said, if the real estate industry really takes to this idea – then I suppose it could be a great way to vet a proposed listing price to community of interested parties.In any case, the site, launched by Karim Tahawi, is in early Alpha stage right now and is in fairly rudimentary form right now. Data is not present in all markets but keep your eyes on it as it evolves.http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing. … valuations [...]

By: Andy Denton

Andy Denton — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 17:06:42 +0000

Joel,

I agree with you that the home valuations must be completed by “boots on the ground” activity. I’m not so sure opeing this application to the masses is the sweet-spot. Modularizing it, making it an agent tool which can be used at open-houses seems more applicable.

But, as we all know, the crowd suggested home valuations are provided when a prospective buyer presents an offer. Allowing non-participatory critics to value homes will yield unrealistic modeling.

http://www.andydenton.com/2007/02/10/my-currency-puts-home-valuations-up-for-debate/

Best,
Andy

By: My-Currency Wants to Use the Wisest of the Crowds

My-Currency Wants to Use the Wisest of the Crowds — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:04:42 +0000

[...] the home valuation site, launched earlier this week (see my-currency Crowdsources Home Valuations) and you can now see a video of CEO Karim Tahawi’s presentation at the DEMO conference – he [...]

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:18:31 +0000

Brilliant idea. Perfect venue for real estate professionals to showcase their expertise.

By: Baron Briefs » Blog Archive » Home Values Crowdsourced . . . Again

Baron Briefs » Blog Archive » Home Values Crowdsourced . . . Again — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:42:02 +0000

[...] launched this week to much fanfare. The idea is to generate home values using crowd intelligence. Why does that sound so [...]

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:56:36 +0000

All of these new AVN’s count on user input to generate accurate data, but none of them I see have any kind of plan to generate enough traffic to their websites to get any kind of accurate data.

Jake

By: Joanne

Joanne — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:45:51 +0000

That’s all we need every buyer who reads in the paper about the bubble and listens to what the TV says will make an opinion on what a house is worth. It is bad enough that the buyers make offers $50 to $100,000 below asking!

By: John

John — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:29:31 +0000

“I wonder what would happen if we tracked the actual price of what a home sold for vs what all the AVM’s said it was worth at the time the home was listed?”

Incredible Agent, that is what Zillow is doing (only for their own algorithm would be my guess). They’re plugging into the local MLS’ to get fresh sold data to compare their zestimates to recently sold homes in order to guage their margin of error and improve their algorithm.