Realtor.com Owner Move Inc. Posts $143M in Revenues in Q4 2024 Filings

Move, the owner-operator of U.S.-based real estate portal Realtor.com, posted slightly reduced revenues in its Q4 financial statement released yesterday.

Highlights from the News Corp subsidiary include:

• News Corp’s digital real estate services segment performed well, with revenues growing 21% annually to $448 million.
• Quarterly revenues reduced by $3 million, or 2%, to $143 million, driven by lower real estate revenues.
• Real estate revenues, which represented 80% of total Move revenues, decreased 2% YoY.
• Q4 traffic Realtor.com's web and mobile sites remained flat YoY at 74 million unique monthly users.
• The digital real estate services segment also records healthy YoY EBITDA growth (25%) at $135 million.

Robert Thomson, CEO at News Corp, said:

"Fiscal 2024 was an outstanding year for News Corp, as we not only delivered robust earnings growth and created substantial shareholder value, but took a significant step to prepare the Company to prosper in the AI age,” he said in a written statement.

"Our landmark agreement with OpenAI is not only expected to be lucrative but will enable us to work closely with a trusted, pre-eminent partner to fashion a future for professional journalism and for provenance.

The essential context for News Corp's results is that the firm also owns REA Group, Australia and South East Asia's powerhouse portal operator, with Move Inc. and Realtor.com contributing just a portion of overall real estate revenues.

The bad news for Move is that its performance appears to have offset healthy growth in REA Group, with the sluggish United States housing market proving a difficult beast to tame for Realtor.com, including an $11 million increase in marketing spend to keep pace with the likes of rival portals Zillow and Homes.com (CoStar).

The result is a yearly revenue decline of circa 10% for Move.

News Corp's statement said:

Move’s revenues in the fiscal year decreased $58 million, or 10%, to $544 million, primarily due to lower real estate revenues. Move’s real estate revenues, which represented 80% of total Move revenues, declined 11%, primarily due to declines in both the referral model and the core lead generation product, partially offset by revenue growth in seller, new homes and rentals through the partnership with Zillow.

The market downturn resulted in lower lead volumes, which decreased 3%, and lower transaction volumes.

In the company's earnings call, Thomson claimed confidence in recent strategic moves for Realtor.com, including the “111 reasons” advertising campaign championing buyer agency; a partnership with rival Zillow; and updates to the portal’s buy- and sell-side offerings, Advantage Pro, Real Choice Selling and Listing Toolkit.

Thomson added:

"Our key strategic focus areas remain the same as we head into the new financial year and include modernizing our technology stack; investing in content for our product offerings, which most recently included the release of a new dynamic mapping feature; and leveraging News Corp’s network to drive audience share.

"The market does seem on the cusp of a revival.

"I have to say that Damian [Eales, CEO at Realtor.com] has done an excellent job in taking full advantage of our media platforms to raise the profile of [Realtor.com] and drive traffic, and there’s much anticipation."