I’ve always thought it would be interesting to have a game about real estate investing, but the few I’ve seen have been lackluster at best. Typically these games over-simplify things and in the end don’t really teach players anything about real estate investing. I finally came across a real estate investing game that is actually decent: The game is called Real Estate Empire. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is entertaining and someone who is new to real estate investment may even be able to learn a thing or two.

Some things the game has which set it apart from the others are that it takes into account things such as the economy, market cycles, credit, savings and professional skills. In the game, players can select from one of five different professions including real estate agent, contractor, interior designer, handyman and MBA. Each has a skill set that can help in the game as well as an accompanying savings and salary. To win the game you have to make more money than the competition--namely, the 4 remaining professionals.

As the game progresses you can buy, fix up and re-sell homes. While one of the downsides to this game is that it basically focuses on the fix and flip strategy of real estate investing, I think it does a pretty good job covering it. Players have to make sure they negotiate a good deal when they buy and decide which repairs to make and which ones will ultimately provide the highest return for them. When they sell the home they have to decide if they want to use an agent (to sell it faster and potentially for more money, but with higher costs), or go it alone. The game even takes into account peak selling seasons, so selling in winter is harder than selling in the spring or summer.

Another cool feature the game has is that it teaches credit and savings. In order to buy a home you first have to have a down payment, and you have to build your credit up along the way as well. At the end of each month, players have to decide which bills to pay and whether to use savings or credit to pay them. As the player pays their bills off, their credit gets better and their credit lines increase and subsequent mortgage rates available to them become better--just like in real life. This part of the game is pretty cool and this is the only game I’ve ever seen that incorporates this piece, which of course is vital to investors.

Rather than explain the entire game, though, I’ll provide you with a link to the place where you can download a trial version and play it for yourself. The trial version is just like the regular game, only a trial game will end after 60 minutes of play time. That is plenty of time to decide whether or not you like it, though, so I recommend checking it out if you like this sort of thing. Happy playing…

http://www.logler.com/real-estate-empire

Labels: real estate