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Realtor.com vs Zillow vs Trulia - Back To Real Estate 2.0 Basics

By
Real Estate Agent with Market Advantage Real Estate

With all the recent talk about subprime mortgages, foreclosures and government bail outs, the days of comparing Zillow with Trulia with Realtor.com seem to be gone. That's why we'd like to revisit those discussions from the angle of "what's been going on with these three since we lasted talked about them?". Well, here are some graphs from Compete.com comparing the three sites in terms of people count, visits and rank.

People Count -the number of people visiting the site:

Since November 2006, Realtor.com has increased their people count by 10.8 percent; Zillow by 17.4 percent; Trulia by 191.3 percent. Though Realtor.com is still the king of the people count with 5.7M people coming through last month, it has lost significant ground in the latter part of 2007. This is not good news for the giant because, while they were losing ground, Zillow was relatively flat overall and Trulia continued to grow.

Pages Per Visit - the number of pages an average person views on a visit to each site:

Since November 2006, Realtor.com has decreased their pages per visit by 22.6 percent; Zillow has increased by 15.5 percent; Trulia by 151.4 percent. Realtor.com currently has the most pages per visit, but lost significant ground between March and November. Realtor.com actually ranked second below Trulia between July and the middle of September. But then Trulia took a nose dive beginning in September, plateauing in the beginning of October allowing Realtor.com to stay at the top spot. Zillow basically went sideways.

Does this mean that people are finding the content on Trulia more valuable and appealing than Realtor.com or Zillow? Does it mean that Trulia offers information that is no found on Realtor.com (e.g. Trulia Voices)? What caused Trulia's nose dive in September? What can Zillow do to increase their pages per visit?

Average Stay - the number of minutes an average visitor spends on each site during each visit

Since November 2006, the average stay on Realtor.com has gone down 17.1 percent; Zillow down 18.6 percent; Trulia's visitors have increased their average stay by 8.6 percent. You'll notice though Trulia nearly quadrupled their pages per visit between November 2006 and August 2007, those same people only increased their average stay by about 25 percent. It seems like the pages seemed interesting to people at first (hence the increased pages per visit), but the pages didn't keep them there very long for whatever reason.

One last statistic that some may find interesting is regarding the overall rank of each of the three sites:

  • Realtor.com is still the top ranking site at 181, but is down 34 percent over the last 12 months
  • Zillow ranks number 850 and is down 50 percent over the last 12 months
  • Trulia is the lowest ranking site at 1,216, but is up 72 percent over the last 12 months

Each of the three graphs and this last statistic above tells a different story and perhaps, they all combine to tell one overall story.

What do you think?

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Mesa, Arizona Real Estate Mesa Arizona Realtor
Homes Arizona Real Estate LLC - Mesa, AZ
AzLadyInRed

I think that I'm impressed with all of this information you've provided. My take is that we need to be everywhere, not just one venue. Thanks for your post..........

Dec 22, 2007 07:14 AM
R. B. "Bob" Mitchell - Loan Officer Raleigh/Durham
Bank of England (NMLS#418481) - Raleigh, NC
Bob Mitchell (NMLS#1046286)

While you probably lost a few people when it started looking like a stat lecture, this was a great posting! 

Another thing to consider when spending your advertising dollars is the cost of each of these sites.  While Realtor.com is supposed to be the "official web site of the National Association of Realtors", they get very expensive very quickly if you do very many listings.  Zillow doesn't cost me anything, but my time.

 

Bob Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Dec 22, 2007 07:32 AM
Brian Wentz
Keller Williams Greater Des Moines - Des Moines, IA
Realtor - Des Moines Iowa Real Estate

I agree with Bob above. Realtor.com gets pricey for sure, and it makes me wonder if they are moving in the wrong direction. If they charge too much, other venues become enticing. and where the heard goes, the pack will follow. It is sad to see that happening.

Dec 22, 2007 08:11 AM
Suzanne Gantner
Realty Texas - Round Rock, TX
GRI, E-Pro, SRES, SRS, ABR, CNE, REDS, CPS, WCS
Very interesting information.  I agree with Teri - we need to be everywhere not just one venue. Especially on the free sights.  Realtor.com is usually 3-4 days behind so I don't place much value on their info anyway.  At least there used to be a delay.  
Dec 22, 2007 08:13 AM
Julie Winter-Paez
Re/Max Property Pros LLC - Eagle River, WI
Broker/Owner

can you update this??? I would be curious to know these numbers today?

Oct 11, 2011 03:53 PM