Market Share - Realtor.Com vs Zillow vs Trulia

Heather - ERA seems to be getting good google results lately for their listing pages - and they do them automatically for us, what is not to like about that?  :)

Heather,

I am sure a very small per cent would look for ERA as opposed to the others.  But when people search for keyword terms like Mesquite Nv real estate, ERA comes right up.

My last listing came from exactly that - they googled, ended up on ERA, liked my description and called me.

But are we really talking about 2 different subjects?

Plus, I do not like to pay for anything.  :)

Hey all, Sara from Zillow here.  First, let me take a stab at the question originally posted , then I will talk to the Zestimates which was brought up in the comments.  You are right that the attitude towards all the sites can be so diverse!

Hitwise's latest stats(Nov 2008) rank the top sites, in terms of traffic as: 1-Realtor.com, 2-Yahoo Real Estate, 3- Zillow, 4- Zip Realty, 6- ReMax, 7- Homegain, 11- Trulia.  Century 21 and Coldwell Banker are the only other brands that show up in the top 25 regularly. 

Our own internal traffic numbers(source: Omniture) showed about 5.3 million unique visitors in November, a 44% increase over November 2007.  To answer your question about how many of these are actually shoppers, verses agents, that is hard to tell for the various sites without actually asking each one.  We know that about 2/3 of our audience says that they will be in the market to buy or sell in the next two years and we estimate about 1.2 million agents, lenders and other professionals use Zillow each month.

Interestingly, we found in a Nielsen study that 95% of the people that use Zillow don't go to Trulia or Realtor.com.  So while you may feel that one service is better than the other, it is still wise to differentiate your marketing plan to reach as many people as possible, which should mean using multiple services. 

With regards to the Zestimates - we actually post our accuracy numbers on the site and link to them behind every Zestimate we publish.  You can drill down to see the median err rate for your county on this accuracy chart.  We determine the err rate by looking at what the Zestimate was on the day the home closes, then comparing that to the actual sales price.  I actually just wrote a post called How Accuracte Are Zillow's Zestimates.  But this chart is very helpful to agents when explaining why you shouldn't use a Zestimate in an official capacity. 

That is interesting info regarding Zillow readers not visiting Realtor.com and/or Trulia.  I would have assumed prospects would browse various sites.  Thanks for the traffic data.

Great point about making sure you get link credit back.  That is MUST for agents on these third party sites.  Also, you sure make sure you are getting search engine credit (or google juice) when you add these links.  Here is a great article about this, if you don't know what I mean, on geekestateblog.com- http://www.geekestateblog.com/are-your-listings-hurting-or-helping-your-google-ranking/.   The more links you put out there, the better potential to be found in search engines, which is so important for a local agent.

Spencer from Zillow here. Really interesting discussion. Heather, I totally agree with you about diversifying, especially with respect to listings. I think agents and sellers shold make sure their listings are everywhere a potential buyer might be. Listings syndication is the way to go. Don't just assume that your MLS will take care of it; MLS listings only go to IDX sites (i.e., other brokerages). Agents also have to make sure there listings are on sites like Zillow (either through their own manual uploading of the listing or through their brokerage, or through a listings aggregator or MLS). Heck, I'd even make sure my listing was up on Craigslist -- you just never know where a buyer might find the listing in this difficult market. But you are also right to pay attention to the business models, business practices and ethics of these various websites as well.

BTW, I like your blog's background.

Gorgeous

Zillow is a joke.I hate meeting with sellers that have looked up the "value" of their home on Zillow. You spend 20 min. explaining why there home is not the value they got off Zillow.

I like to put my listings on Trulia and about 10 other real estate sites. I don't get a ton of traffic, but I like my sellers to see the different places their home is listed.

I find Craigslist to be one of the best at bringing traffic to my site.

I post on many sites.  If you use postlets, it goes out to about 10 others and that includes Craigslist. However I still think that the number one place consumers go is Realtor.com

ZILLOW RULES - READ ON:  I got an out-of-the-blue sales call from a TRULIA rep tonight, who tried in vain to pitch me "zip code realtor listings" on their site.  I am listed on Zillow already for one of the zip codes in my area, and have had minimal success with that in the 45 days of the service, only two real leads so far.  But one lead was a solid buyer lead, so that was worthwhile.

TRULIA offers the same service, but not at the SAME PRICE. In fact, their price was an unjustifiable 33% higher.  Worse, they wanted upfront payment for 6 months service IN ADVANCE to get any kind of discount.  No amount of haggling had any effect, so I declined their offer, and said I need to think it over.

AM I GLAD I DID!   This article published yesterday on THESTREET.COM says that TRULIA gets 33% LESS UNIQUE VISITORS than ZILLOW does!  So, Zillow RULES!

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11674570/1/trulia-vs-zillow-the-battle-for-online-real-estate.html

Hey Joe - Brad from Zillow here.

I know I speak for everyone here at Zillow when I say thanks for being part of the Z-family. Looks like you're off to a good start. Congrats on your contacts/leads, there will be more where those came from ahead.  Our traffic increases month over month and the mobile access and search for homes on our mobile app is growing like gangbusters. 

I read the reviews and checked out your profile, website, and blog etc. (loved your day with a REALTOR on Facebook too)

There's a few ideas I'd like to share that might help you increase your contacts and leads overall, feel free to contact me at your convenience if interested. 707 646-1876 or email me at brada at zillow dot com.

Now I'm off to read the article you linked above in your comment...