In January we saw that the US market had four strong players – realestate.yahoo.com, zillow, realtor.com and trulia. To no ones surprise this has not changed in February. However, given the highly fragmented nature of the market, we have decided to increase the number of portals covered to 20. This provides some light on the lesser players who are trying to find their way in this crowded market.
All numbers are prepared using Google Ad Planner’s February 2012 numbers.
Traffic
The top four remain the same in February. In fact the top 10 remain the same with minimal movements in the number of Unique Users visiting the sites. The only real change came with apartments.com moving up a couple of places in the rankings. It will be more interesting look at the movements on a rolling quarter and half year basis – perhaps next time!
| UV (users) (m) | |
| realestate.yahoo.com | 13.0 |
| zillow.com | 12.0 |
| realtor.com | 9.8 |
| trulia.com | 9.1 |
| realetate.msn.com | 7.4 |
| homes.com | 4.2 |
| frontdoor.com | 3.8 |
| redfin.com | 3.5 |
| rent.com | 2.4 |
| remax.com | 2.0 |
| ziprealty.com | 1.8 |
| apartmentguide.com | 1.6 |
| apartments.com | 1.3 |
| mynewplace.com | 1.2 |
| rentals.com | 1.2 |
| homefinder.com | 1.2 |
| forrent.com | 1.2 |
| hotpads.com | 1.2 |
| weichert.com | 1.2 |
| listingbook.com | 1.0 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
When looking at total visits the top 20 portals on a visits basis, Zillow is just ahead of realestate.yahoo.com with realtor and trulia following. Frontdoor jumps a few placed while realestate.msn.com drops down a spot. Unlike other markets, especially the UK where rightmove.co.uk has 54% of the visits to the top 10 and Australia where realestate.com.au has 59% of visits to the top 10, zillow can manage 19% of visits to the top 10 or just 16% of visits to the top 20. Suffice to say, the market in the US remains very fragmented.
| Visits (m) | % Top 20 Visits | |
| zillow.com | 40.0 | 15.9% |
| realestate.yahoo.com | 37.0 | 14.7% |
| realtor.com | 32.0 | 12.7% |
| trulia.com | 27.0 | 10.7% |
| frontdoor.com | 24.0 | 9.5% |
| realetate.msn.com | 17.0 | 6.8% |
| redfin.com | 13.0 | 5.2% |
| homes.com | 12.0 | 4.8% |
| ziprealty.com | 7.1 | 2.8% |
| rent.com | 6.1 | 2.4% |
| listingbook.com | 5.1 | 2.0% |
| remax.com | 5.0 | 2.0% |
| apartmentguide.com | 4.1 | 1.6% |
| weichert.com | 3.4 | 1.4% |
| apartments.com | 3.2 | 1.3% |
| forrent.com | 3.2 | 1.3% |
| hotpads.com | 3.2 | 1.3% |
| rentals.com | 3.1 | 1.2% |
| mynewplace.com | 3.0 | 1.2% |
| homefinder.com | 3.0 | 1.2% |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
Finally when looking at the frequency of visit during the month, Zillow drops to 5th place, well behind frontdoor.com and listingbook.com. realestate.msn.com actually drops out of the top 20, casting doubt over the quality of the traffic it is driving to the site.
| Frequency | |
| frontdoor.com | 6.3 |
| listingbook.com | 5.1 |
| ziprealty.com | 3.9 |
| redfin.com | 3.7 |
| zillow.com | 3.3 |
| realtor.com | 3.3 |
| century21.com | 3.1 |
| trulia.com | 3.0 |
| estately.com | 2.9 |
| homes.com | 2.9 |
| realestate.yahoo.com | 2.8 |
| weichert.com | 2.8 |
| caldwellbanker.com | 2.8 |
| forrent.com | 2.7 |
| hotpads.com | 2.7 |
| forsalebyowner.com | 2.6 |
| rentals.com | 2.6 |
| apartmentguide.com | 2.6 |
| rent.com | 2.5 |
| remax.com | 2.5 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
Engagement
The second measure of success is the level of engagement a site has with its users. This is best viewed through page impression, average page impressions per visit and average session duration.
Not surprisingly, the market leading zillow.com captures 20% of the page impressions followed closely by realtor.com.and trulia.com tied for second place. Interestingly, the same story can be seen in page impressions as in visits, the market leading zillow does not dominate anywhere near to the same extent as realestate.com.au and rightmove.co.uk do in their respective markets.
| PI (m) | % PI’s | |
| zillow.com | 500.0 | 20.0% |
| realtor.com | 410.0 | 16.4% |
| trulia.com | 410.0 | 16.4% |
| homes.com | 190.0 | 7.6% |
| realestate.yahoo.com | 160.0 | 6.4% |
| realetate.msn.com | 140.0 | 5.6% |
| redfin.com | 98.0 | 3.9% |
| frontdoor.com | 90.0 | 3.6% |
| hotpads.com | 88.0 | 3.5% |
| ziprealty.com | 73.0 | 2.9% |
| listingbook.com | 66.0 | 2.6% |
| remax.com | 50.0 | 2.0% |
| rent.com | 46.0 | 1.8% |
| weichert.com | 42.0 | 1.7% |
| apartments.com | 24.0 | 1.0% |
| rentals.com | 23.0 | 0.9% |
| homefinder.com | 23.0 | 0.9% |
| apartmentguide.com | 22.0 | 0.9% |
| century21.com | 21.0 | 0.8% |
| realtytrac.com | 19.0 | 0.8% |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
When looking at page impressions per visit, we get a rather surprising result. Hotpads screams to the top with 27.5 pages per visit – almost double second place homes.com. This number looks a little iffy however, what is more interesting, is that trulia is well a head of zillow. Instinctively you would have thought zillow with all its estimates etc would be a head of the market, but it is not the case as it manages only 6th place. The other scary one is realestate.yahoo.com that didn’t even make the top 20!
| PI/Visit | |
| hotpads.com | 27.5 |
| homes.com | 15.8 |
| trulia.com | 15.2 |
| listingbook.com | 12.9 |
| realtor.com | 12.8 |
| zillow.com | 12.5 |
| weichert.com | 12.4 |
| realtytrac.com | 11.2 |
| ziprealty.com | 10.3 |
| remax.com | 10.0 |
| realetate.msn.com | 8.2 |
| homefinder.com | 7.7 |
| rent.com | 7.5 |
| redfin.com | 7.5 |
| century21.com | 7.5 |
| apartments.com | 7.5 |
| forsalebyowner.com | 7.5 |
| rentals.com | 7.4 |
| condo.com | 7.4 |
| foreclosure.com | 7.1 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
