Housle: The Wordle of Real Estate

Two things people love doing online (aside from scrolling social media):

1. Looking at homes for sale
2. Playing guessing games

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that someone got the idea to merge the two. 

Massively popular guessing games took over the internet at the end of 2021 when Wordle went public. Soon after, spin-offs of the original appeared, including Nerdle, a math version, and Heardle, a song version. 

But what about Wordle for real estate?

Enter Housle, a new game created by TV producer Doug Weitzbuch.

What is Housle?

Modeled after Wordle, Housle gives users six chances to guess the price of a house within 5% of the actual listing price. 

That’s right—all properties on Housle are actual live listings, which Weitzbuch hand-selects daily. So far, Housle has featured properties from Connecticut to Miami to Missouri. How awesome would it be to say your listing is the Housle of the day?!

Back to how Housle works: With each guess, users are told whether their guess was too high or too low, and a new photo and clue about the property are revealed. Each clue provides information needed to make an educated guess about the price, including the home’s location, square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, year built, and additional features. 

Once your six guesses are up, Housle shows the results, provides images of the house, and links to the actual listing. 

In the first three days, over 46,000 users tried Housle’s browser version of the game. Weitzbuch isn’t surprised about the early popularity. He told Insider: 

I think there’s a voyeuristic and escapist element. There’s a dream behind a home.

Doug Weitzbuch

An Interactive Way to Scroll Through Homes

Weitzbuch is an avid Wordle player. And since he’s heavily influenced by the world of real estate (he worked on Netflix’s “Buy My House” and is married to a Compass broker), he decided to bring the two together to create Housle. 

This interactive approach to looking at listings is sure to gain traction. Who knows, maybe Soren Iverson’s idea to add a comment section to Zillow will come out next. How diabolical would that be?

Zillow, with a comment section pic.twitter.com/WD3kpdAOar

— Soren Iverson (@soren_iverson) January 15, 2023

For now, Housle is just for fun. You can currently play online or on Housle’s app. 

And if it has the same success as Wordle, which was acquired by the New York Times for seven figures, Weitzbuch told Insider he might be cashing in. 

Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com. If one of them wants to come knocking on my door down the road, I’d take their call.

Doug Weitzbuch