PropQwiz answers this question: What if your endless scrolling for your dream home on real estate listing sites could win you an actual house?
PropQwiz, a new mobile game launching today, turns that fantasy into a reality. Blending real estate with real prizes, PropQwiz challenges players in a weekday show to guess the listing prices of actual homes across the U.S. in live daily games.
And there’s a life-changing possible reward: the top $350,000 prize (that is sometimes given away) can be used to purchase a home, pay off a mortgage, or make a down payment.
It sounds a lot like the old HQ Trivia, but for homes. But it’s different, as we’ll explain.
Every weekday at 12 p.m. Pacific time, players can tune in via mobile devices for the PQ Daily game, a live online trivia experience featuring one real home. After seeing five key clues—bedrooms, square footage, lot size, special features, and location—players have 15 seconds to guess the list price. The closer the guess, the more PropTIX (points) they earn. PropTIX serve as entries into the next home giveaway.
“People already scroll real estate listings for fun— we’re just giving them a real shot at winning something life-changing,” said Jim Casey, CEO of PropQwiz, in a statement. “With a housing crisis pushing homeownership out of reach for so many, we built PropQwiz to give people a new kind of hope. It’s not just a game—it’s an accessible, fun way to open the door to homeownership.”
Select Gameplay and Community Features:
- PQ Daily: Every weekday at 12p.m. Pacific time, thousands log in together for a communal, fast-paced adrenaline hit that could win them the ultimate prize.
- PQ Minis: Bite-sized multiple-choice quizzes players can play anytime to sharpen their skills and stack up PropTIX.
- Giveaway Tracker: A live in-app meter shows progress toward unlocking the next home giveaway—the more players that engage, the more homes PropQwiz gives away.
- PropTIX: PropQwiz is 100% free to play—there are no in-app purchases or shortcuts. You can’t buy PropTIX; you have to earn them.
- Giveaway Details: The top prize is $350,000 that can be used to buy a home, pay off a mortgage, or make a down payment. For those preferring flexibility, winners can opt for a $175,000 cash payout.
Nearly 90% of Americans say their top wish is to own a home, yet over half of Gen Z think they’d need to win the lottery to buy one. PropQwiz offers a hopeful, exciting, and entertaining new path to owning a home. Winning the $350,000 is just the beginning—PropQwiz also connects winners with trusted real estate professionals to help guide them through the often daunting homebuying process.
PropQwiz is available to play and download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, or by visiting www.propqwiz.com.
Origins
It may sound a lot like HQ Trivia, the appointment game company that rocketed to huge numbers and then flamed out.
“There are definitely some similarities to it, but it isn’t what inspired the idea,” said Jim Casey, CEO of PropQwiz, in an interview with GamesBeat. “My wife and I were walking around the neighborhood, walking the dog, seeing a house for sale. We challenged each other to guess what the list price was that they were asking for. We found that it was a lot more fun when we did it when we were traveling because we had no idea what the market was. It stemmed from that.”
They reached out to friends for help and then started developing it.
“What we found is that something like 78% of Zillow browsers are doing it for fun. They’re not looking to buy or sell a house. We knew we were on to a very popular cultural trend. But the bigger thing was that we were encountering so many people, especially people who are Millennials and Gen Zs, who missed the boat because of the housing affordability crisis. They were just not able to afford homes. And it was really hard for us to see.”
Stats showed that more than half of young people couldn’t afford a home in the U.S., or even afford rent or a mortgage.
“Most of them feel that in order to own a home, they would have to win the lottery. So we thought, let’s give them our version of a lottery,” Casey said. “They play a fun game, and the ultimate reward that we get to give away is homes.”
The more people play, the more home giveaways can happen. Casey and COO Daniel Tibbets said they see this as a platform to empower players to give away homes to each other. The goal is to get to a place where they give away 260 homes a year, or Monday through Friday.
How it works
All the giveaways will happen in the U.S. Rather than give away actual homes, the winners will get $350,000 toward buying the home they want. If they choose, they can also take just half the winnings, $175,000, in cash.
The games will start Monday through Friday, with the potential for $350,000 for a house to be given away at a 12 p.m. show on each workday. The actual giveaway depends on how many players show up and engage with the app.
Each week, the company will give $2,500 toward rent for a winner. Then when the show reaches the right threshold, the company can give away the grand prize of $350,000. The more that show up, the more houses are given away, Tibbets said. A time meter inside the app shows when that grand prize drawing will take place.
In the quiz itself, PropQwiz gives five clues on each house and then you guess. Hitting the precise price for a house isn’t actually the determinant of the final winner, as that is based on a random drawing from the PropTIX in the match. But playing a lot and being knowledgeable about home prices will give you better chances of winning.
The game is a sweepstakes as the company doesn’t want to be classified either as gambling or as a skill-based game. The game is free to play, with an element of chance, and so it’s classified as a sweepstakes.
You could enter a lot of times using PropTIX which you get for guessing accurately in previous games. You could put 15,000 PropTIX into a drawing and you’ll have a better chance to win. So the game rewards people who keep on coming back.
The drawing is a good way to zero in on the winner because, once a game gets millions of users, there will be lots of people who guess exactly right.
Each daily game unfolds Monday through Friday at 12 p.m. Pacific time. Based on the sample show that I saw, the game’s host reveals clues a little at a time, like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or the state and city that the house is listed in.
Anti-fraud measures and other business details
The company has raised money but isn’t announcing the amount. And it has 20 people, mostly in Los Angeles.
The aim is to get sponsors to support the business with promotions and advertising.
The company isn’t giving away actual houses because of regional price variations and taxes. If you gave away a house in the Bay Area, the $350,000 isn’t enough to pay for it. That becomes a burden. And if someone gets a house as a gift, then they have to pay taxes and would have to sell the house to pay the taxes. All of that becomes a burden.
The frequency of the home giveaways will depend on how many players there are, but there will be smaller prizes and mini-games to keep players busy as the numbers build toward larger giveaways.
There are ways to game the system. Your neighbors will know your home’s exact sale price. And people can look up houses on Zillow and then guess. But the exact address isn’t available.
The game may reveal details of a house that can lead people to the exact listing, but you only have 15 seconds to answer after the last clue.
“We’re going to add an element of chance to it so that everyone has a shot, but you have a better shot if you’re better at it,” Tibbets said. “One of the things we wanted to be cautious of is feeling like you could never catch up.”
A player shouldn’t have such a disincentive to play. So even with just one ticket, a player has a chance to win. Users cannot send PropTIX to friends or share them. There is a “Share Score” option for users to share their game results with each other directly or on social media, which encourages more people to use the app and helps the game become more viral.
And the more viral it is, the more advertisers can come and the more homes can be given away. The game will also have ranking so folks can compete with each other and share success on social.
The company will leave some details open to fan preferences, like whether to have the same daily host or not. The game will debut first on iOS and Android. By July 7, a web-based version is expected to be available.
[Updated 4:04 p.m. on June 30 with some corrections].