“Have you ever gotten screwed buying or selling a house?”

my-currency, 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 kicks it off with a bang.

Reactions in the industry, on the other hand, have been mixed. Here’s just a sampling…

Paul Kaihla at Business 2.0’s The Real Estate Economy calls it a Zillow-killer; while Bloodhound Blog, gives the site their First Honorary Cheez-Whiz Prize.

More reaction from bloggers:

3 Oceans thinks they’ll be sued in three months.

Altos Research believes the concept of predictive markets may have some legs.

Transparent RE thinks My-Currency could become a local venue where consumers and Realtors can connect.

Realty Thoughts wishes they had launched with a fuller database of properties.

Me? I think my-currency will eventually succumb to people wanting to game the system. Ultimately, Garbage In, Garbage Out. Too many of these social sites fall victim to the unscrupulous nature of the crowd; even the most successful examples of crowd wisdom sites (Digg.com) continue to struggle with this problem (e.g. Spikethevote.com). I think my-currency will fight an uphill battle against the gamers. The real world financial incentive to artificially boost a home’s valuation will likely be too enticing.

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