The Don Edam Group | Real Estate Professionals Serving Minneapolis, Edina, St. Paul and Surrounding Suburbs

Mortgage application volume rose 22.5 percent during the week ending Nov. 30, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly application survey.

The MBA’s application index climbed to a seasonally adjusted 791.8 points from 646.3 last week. That figure was revised down from a previously reported 652.5 because of an error by one of the larger reporting agencies, the MBA said. Refinance volume jumped 31.9 percent and purchase volume increased 15.2 percent.

The index peaked at 1,856.7 during the week ending May 30, 2003, at the height of the housing boom.

The survey provides a snapshot of mortgage lending activity among mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. It covers about 50 percent of all residential retail mortgage originations each week.

The average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.82 percent from 6.09 percent a week earlier. The average interest rate for one-year adjustable-rate mortgages increased to 6.28 percent from 6.24 percent the previous week. Full Story

There’s nothing like compelling content to engage potential customers, and the folks at Springwise point us to Realius.com who is doing just that with its Fantasy Real Estate suite of online games.

The first of these, Price Me Now, was demonstrated at the TechCrunch40 Conference in September and crowned Most Creative Idea at the Web 2.0 Summit a month later. Now in beta, the game challenges players to guess the prices of actual homes for sale in their market by viewing the photos and property details provided by the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Players earn points based on their performance against the Realius price, an aggregation of previous player estimates and the actual list price; in the near future, prizes will be awarded to the best pricers. The game is free to users, but real estate companies and professionals can purchase in-game placement as “coaches” who guide players and make their own professional guesses. Licensing fees, referrals and market reports are also part of Realius’s planned revenue model.

Chuck Teller, CEO of the California start-up, explains: “Realius captures the synergies between the enormous popular interest in casual gaming and Americans’ obsession with real estate. Our games engage consumers as they dream about, search for, buy, furnish, remodel and sell their homes in ways that are incredibly fun-but also instructive.”

Other games in the works at Realius include Fantasy Flip, which lets homeowners give their homes virtual makeovers and then solicit opinions on how much the changes would increase their value, and Major League Investor, which pits players against one another as they build fantasy property portfolios. The games currently focus on the company’s home base of the San Francisco Bay Area, but they’re a nice example of marketing through content – which could be particularly important for weathering tough business climates such as the one faced by real estate today.