Top US Portals in July 2008 vs August 2007

When looking at the performance of property portal sites in a market, you often look at a point in time and try to draw some conclusions or you may look at two adjacent months.  However to really get a feeling for movement in the consumer views of a market, it is more important to look at the movement over a longer period of time.

Therefore below are the Hitwise visits market share numbers for the top US residential property portal sites for August 2007and July 2008.

You can make some interesting observations:

• Realtor.com has slipped significantly, losing 2.07% of visits to property sites or 22% of its traffic.
• Yahoo real estate has been a big mover increasing market share by 1.16%
• Zillo.com and Ziprealty.com also were strong movers
• Trulia entered the top 10 over the period
• Realtytrac decreased significantly over the time, losing 2.67%

So what does it mean?

Firstly, although realtor.com continues to be the clear market leader, they are coming back to the pack and the challenge will be to continue to drive traffic to the site.  Perhaps a stronger focus on SEO is required.

Secondly, Yahoo, Zillow and Trulia are doing the right things in their approach to growing traffic to their sites.  It would be interesting to see the frequency of visits during the period to get a feeling for for brand loyalty.

Finally, visits to realtytrac have dropped off either due to a decrease in interest in the foreclosure market or as a result of the the content distribution deals they have done, people are looking at foreclosure market information from realtytrac.com on other sites.

 

Jul-08				Aug-07
Rank	Residential Portal Sites	Mkt Share	Change	Rank	Residential Portal Sites	Mkt Share
1	www.realtor.com	7.33%	-2.07%	1	www.realtor.com	9.40%
2	www.realestate.yahoo.com	3.06%	1.16%	2	www.realtytrac.com	4.10%
3	www.zillow.com	2.35%	0.35%	3	www.homegain.com	2.70%
4	www.remax.com	2.30%	-0.30%	4	www.rent.com	2.60%
5	www.ziprealty.com	2.21%	0.71%	5	www.remax.com	2.60%
6	www.rent.com	2.09%	-0.51%	6	www.apartments.com	2.00%
7	www.homegain.com	1.59%	-1.11%	7	www.zillow.com	2.00%
8	www.apartments.com	1.49%	-0.51%	8	www.realestate.yahoo.com	1.90%
9	www.trulia.com	1.47%		9	www.ziprealty.com	1.50%
10	www.realtytrac.com	1.43%	-2.67%	10	www.move.com	1.50%
11	www.century21.com	1.25%	0.05%	11	www.realestate.msn.com	1.30%
12	www.homes.com	1.15%	-0.05%	12	www.visualtour.com	1.30%
13	www.visualtour.com	1.13%	-0.17%	13	www.century21.com	1.20%
14	www.mynewplace.com	1.07%		14	www.homes.com	1.20%
15	www.realestate.msn.com	1.00%	-0.30%	15	www.coldwellbanker.com	1.10%
16	www.coldwellbanker.com	0.99%	-0.11%	16	www.housevalues.com	1.00%
17	www.forrent.com	0.95%	0.05%	17	www.forrent.com	0.90%
18	www.move.com	0.92%	-0.58%	18	www.forsalebyowner.com	0.80%

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