New Realtor.com CEO Outlines One Word Mandate from News Corp Bosses in Interview

The new CEO of U.S. real estate portal Realtor.com has laid out the mandate given to him by his bosses at parent company News Corp.

In an onstage interview with industry veteran Brad Inman at the Inman Connect conference in Las Vegas this week, David Eales said that he wanted to "lean into" the connection his company has traditionally had with realtors.

Eales said that his bosses at News Corp gave him a very simple mandate when he took on the top job at Realtor.com: grow.

The new boss will have his work cut out for him. There is increased competition among U.S. residential real estate portals with the arrival of Homes.com, backed by the financial might of CoStar Group. The Washington-based company is claiming that with Homes.com and Apartments.com it has now supplanted Realtor.com as the number two traffic network in the market.

When asked about his company's position in the market, Eales agreed with Inman that second place "pisses [him] off".

"Of course we don’t want to be No. 2. We were No. 1. We predate Google in the digital industry. We were created in 1995. We are the original listings site. We were No. 1 for many years. Something happened where Zillow took that crown off us — and I want it back.”

Eales was appointed after his predecessor, David Doctorow left his position as CEO of Realtor.com parent Move, Inc back in June. Eales is a longtime News Corp exec who has led several transformation initiatives across the company's portfolio including the leading News.com.au site.

In his previous role, Eales managed a partnership between News.com.au and News Corp's flagship Australian portal Realestate.com.au. The new Realtor.com boss said he will be looking to build similar partnerships between News Corp media assets such as Fox News and The New York Post and the real estate portal with the aim of driving increased traffic.