The latest quarterly filing from media giant News Corp reveals that its U.S. real estate portal Realtor.com grew revenues by two percent year-on-year in the three months that ended March 31st. Other relevant highlights pertaining to Realtor and its parent company Move, Inc. include:
While Move managed to generate a two percent uptick in revenue ($135M), News Corp investors may feel underwhelmed by the figure given that the portal's main rival Zillow managed to grow its top line by 13% in the same period.
On a call with investors, New Corp CEO Robert Thompson said that Realtor's growth initiatives across rental, seller and new homes "flourished" and accounted for 22% of total revenue for Move. News Corp CFO, Lavanya Chandrasekar noted that Realtor.com's rental business in particular had thrived throughout the quarter, driven by the listings syndication partnership signed with Zillow back in March of 2024.
Over recent months Realtor.com and CoStar-owned upstart rival Homes.com have been at the centre of their parent companies' competing claims to the second spot behind Zillow and News Corp took the opportunity of its quarterly reporting to reiterate its claim to the number two position. Citing Comscore data, Thompson said that visits to Realtor reached two thirty-nine million in March, representing 29% of market share among the top real estate portals.
While there was an eight percent drop in monthly unique users on the portal and a 17% drop in lead volume during the quarter, this was offset somewhat by greater revenue per lead as the company switched its traffic acquisition strategy to focus on higher quality consumers and leads.
Thompson also paid tribute to Move's CEO, Damian Eales saying that he and his team "thrive on competition" and are "pulling further ahead of Redfin and Homes.com".