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The "Best" Real Estate Search For Your Buck

By Joshua Harley

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Fathom Realty

February 07, 2011 02:01 AM

Fathom Realty Last July Yahoo! Real Estate and Zillow announced a “partnership” that seemed like a pretty sweet deal for those in the Industry.

According to Hitwise - a month after the announcement, Yahoo! Real Estate beat Realtor.com in the battle for most website activity in August. This trend continued into September…

Yahoo Real Estate’s market share jumped to 6.95 percent from 5.87 percent in October. Realtor.com’s market share grew somewhat more slowly, to 6.28 percent from 5.99 percent in October.

Zillow uses Omniture statistics, and it announced in December that it received 13 million unique visitors in December… the December results for Yahoo! Real Estate and Realtor.com are not out yet.

And Then There’s Trulia

The number four seat in Real Estate Websites Rankings belongs to Trulia.com – a company that provides a free blogging platform for agents, and includes consumer questions and for agent interaction (like Zillow). Where do their services stand in the wake of numbers?

I thought the post by Trulia in November regarding the Rankings, and how it was presented in Inman News was really thought provoking.

And it made me think back to those December numbers for Zillow… Could the Facebook Movie, Oprah and the fascination with the Zuckerberg House contribute to the record number of hits? I doubt that was the WHOLE reason, but I don’t doubt that it could have contributed.

This brings me to the real question of the Post:

Which PREMIUM account is going to generate the BEST leads and provide the BEST opportunity for lead conversion in 2011?

Should the strategy continue to be to spend your marketing dollars on Realtor.com if the consumer is looking at Yahoo! Real Estate? What about Zillow? Would you be better off purchasing an exclusive zipcode or two on their site. Trula offers a solid package too.

I’m curious – what’s your 2011 strategy to generate leads?

If you have questions about building your real estate blog as you build your real estate business, give me a call! Josh Harley, Fathom Realty, 214-228-0301. I’d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter? Let’s Connect!

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Maria Couto

RE/MAX Premier - Berkeley Heights, NJ

Realtor with "Results That "MOVE" You'

Joshua, I hope people who read your post will have an answer. So far I use Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com. I can't tell you that as far as leads one is better than the other.

Feb 07, 2011 02:09 AM

Tricia Hoffmann

Your Home Free - Highland Village, TX

My boss just jumped at the chance to get gobs of zip codes on Zillow and Yahoo. We already spend a ton on Realtor.com and he just told me yesterday that his conversion rate on Zillow is far greater than Realtor.com. He thinks that Zillow people are more tech savvy as they drive around with their iPads and search for homes.

Feb 07, 2011 02:34 AM

Adrian Willanger

206 909-7536 AdrianWillanger-broker.com - Seattle, WA

Profit from my two decades of experience

Joshua~I've been working with lead generation systems for about a decade and really got burned out, I have a meeting with Zillow in the morning to take a look at their platform, it seems very reasonable at first glance.

Feb 16, 2011 12:58 PM

Sara Bonert

Zillow - Atlanta, GA

Real Estate Internet Marketing

I'm too biased to vote.. haha. But what is crazy is for me is to read in your post that our numbers (Zillow) were at 13 million in Dec 2010, the latest stats out when you wrote this piece. Here we are, 5 months later and our internal tracking numbers (sourced by Omniture, which I believe is also where the 13 M came from) had us at 22 M unique users last month in May 2011. That number does not include Yahoo! Real Estate.

Some of that growth may be seasonal, but a very large chunk of it has to do with mobile. I believe we only had an iPhone app last December - but now have them for the Driod, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and iPad. Around 20% of Zillow’s traffic now comes from a mobile device; on weekends it’s 30%.

Doesn't really answer your question, but thought you'd at least find the growth patterns interesting.

Jun 16, 2011 09:08 AM

The "Best" Real Estate Search For Your Buck

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