Kidder Mathews Senior Vice President Mike King, CCIM won the $1,000,000 grand prize in Ten-X’s first-ever “Battle of the Bids” competition, along with a $100,000 donation to the charity of his choice. Watch Ten-X’s video announcing King as the winner here.
The contest — dubbed the “first gamification of commercial real estate” — was held on Ten-X’s digital sales platform and attracted around 15,000 commercial real estate brokers, buyers, and sellers to play. More than $3,000,000 in prizes were awarded over the course of eight rounds between April and the end of July.
At the beginning of each round, players selected up to 10 real properties to bet on before they were sold at auction on the Ten-X platform. Points were earned for how accurately players predicted the sale price. At the end of each round, a $100,000 prize was given to the winner, along with various smaller prizes for other high scorers.
The $1,000,000 grand prize winner was determined by total points earned throughout the competition. King accumulated 35,800 points, equating to an auction bet accuracy rate of 92.71% and beating the No. 2 opponent from Colliers by 1,150 points. In addition to the grand prize, he won the final round, earning him another $100,000. Combined with earnings from the first seven rounds, he took home a total of $1.2 million plus $100,000 for the charity of his choice. After years of volunteering with Big Brother Big Sisters of Puget Sound, he said it was an easy decision.
“I’ve been involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters since 2007 when I was matched with my ‘little brother.’ He is now 22 years-old and is no longer little. It has been a rewarding experience to see him grow up and be a part of his life,” said King. “Over the years, I’ve been a part of a number of Climb for Kids fundraisers. I’ve raised money for Big Brothers Big Sisters by climbing Mt. Rainer, Mt. Hood. Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, and Mt. Shuksan. To date, we have raised over $100,000 through the climbs, and it feels great to be able to double down and donate another $100,000 to a great organization.”
“We are so very grateful to Mike for selecting Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound for this gift,” said Alonda Williams, President and CEO of the nonprofit. “It is so rewarding to know that his experience as a mentor was instrumental in selecting us as the recipient. I also really appreciate that CoStar Group and Ten-X would create an opportunity for nonprofits to benefit from the award. We plan to use the funds to support young people and their mentors in funding match activities that will help them further their education, support social emotional skills, and unlock their potential.”
“We hope our players had as much fun winning over $3,000,000 as we did giving it away,” said Steve Jacobs, President of Ten-X. “Hats off to Mike King for taking home more than a third of that — not only did he get the most overall points, he also had the highest bet accuracy. He really knows CRE. Being the first to gamify CRE, CoStar Group set out to showcase both the power of Ten-X and the talent of the brokers that use it, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the results.”
CoStar Group hand-delivered a lottery-sized check to King at Kidder Mathews’ headquarters in Seattle. He said it felt “surreal” when he shared the news with his family.
“Throughout the final week of the competition, I kept downplaying it because I didn’t want us to get our hopes up,” said King. “When we told the kids that I won, they asked immediately asked about a trip to Disneyland.”
About Ten-X
Ten-X is the world’s largest online commercial real estate exchange. For over 12 years, the Ten-X platform has empowered brokers, sellers, and buyers with data-driven technology and comprehensive marketing tools to expand market visibility and decrease time to close. With Ten-X, brokers and sellers tap into a digital platform that makes it easy to onboard assets, evaluate the success of complimentary marketing campaigns in real-time, and follow up on the strongest pre-qualified leads. Buyers are precision-matched with properties aligned with their investment goals, with unprecedented access to market analysis, and due diligence documents to help them securely acquire properties online. For more information, visit ten-x.com.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information, and analytics. Founded in 1987, CoStar conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information. The company’s suite of online services enables clients to analyze, interpret, and gain unmatched insight on commercial property values, market conditions, and current availabilities. CoStar Group’s brands include CoStar, Ten-X, STR, LoopNet, Apartments.com, Homes.com, Homesnap, BizBuySell, Lands of America, CoStar Real Estate Manager, Realla, Belbex.com, Thomas Daily, Grecam, and Emporis. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar Group maintains offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Asia. For more information, visit costargroup.com.
About Kidder Mathews
Kidder Mathews is the largest independent commercial real estate firm on the West Coast, with 900 real estate professionals and staff in 21 offices in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona. Kidder Mathews offers a complete range of brokerage, appraisal, asset services, consulting, project and construction management, and debt & equity finance services for all property types. The firm performs $10.9 billion in transactions, manages 62 million square feet of space, and conducts over 2,600 appraisals annually. For more information, visit kidder.com.
