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According to a financial report released on Wednesday, Realtor.com parent company Move Inc.’s third-quarter revenue fell 6% year-on-year to $132 million.
News Corp., the parent company of Move Inc., said rising mortgage rates and other macroeconomic headwinds contributed to the decline. Real estate revenue, which accounts for 80% of Move’s total revenue, is down 5% annually. Despite challenges in turning around revenue woes, Realtor.com’s lead count grew 4% year over year, its first annual increase in two years.
Realtor.com’s web and mobile traffic growth remains steady, with the portal attracting an average of 72 million unique visitors per month, according to internal data.
Overall, News Corp.’s digital real estate services unit performed strongly, with revenue growing 7% annually to $388 million. The segment’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) increased 2% annually to $104 million due to increased marketing costs for Move and the negative impact of foreign currency fluctuations.
Unlike most US companies, News Corp Australia’s reporting method is to end the year on June 30.
In a prepared statement ahead of the company’s earnings call, News Corp. Chief Executive Robert Thomson said profitability improved in the quarter as the company undergoes “an exponential digital revolution.” Thomson did not highlight Move or the company’s other real estate companies.
Robert Thomson
“News Corp. has once again made substantial progress on its strategic mission to transform the company and add value for all shareholders,” he said. “News Corp.’s profitability improved slightly in the third quarter compared with the previous year, continuing a trend of Growth this fiscal year picked up pace in April after the company posted its most profitable three years in a row since its rebirth in 2013.
“As mentioned previously, we have been reviewing the structure of the company – this work is intense and ongoing – and we have made fundamental changes to provide maximum flexibility,” he added.
Realtor.com found itself at loggerheads with CoStar Group in the early months of the year over claims by CoStar Group founder and CEO Andy Florance that Homes.com had replaced Realtor.com as the U.S. The second most trafficked residential portal
Damian Eales
Move chief executive Damian Eales became more optimistic in rebutting CoStar Group’s traffic claims. Eales, who offered a mild rebuke of the company’s traffic reporting methodology at the Inman Connect conference in New York, later delivered a bold, sweeping criticism at the National Association of Realtors’ midyear conference, where he accused CoStar Group of using it to describe itself. The company’s data exaggerated Homes.com’s traffic figures.
“Homes.com is No. 4 and has about a quarter of the audience it claims,” Eales said Tuesday.
A Move spokesperson reinforced Eales’s comments in a statement to Inman, while pointing to CoStar Group’s Q1 2024 investor presentation, in which the company said, “According to Google Analytics, Homes.com website unique visits per month More than 110 million, residential network more than 156 million in March 2024.
The last page of the presentation said CoStar Group’s “home network” includes 17 websites, including Homes.com, Apartments.com, Homesnap and CitySnap.
However, a CoStar Group spokesperson dismissed Eales’s “defamatory” claims, noting that the same briefing also pointed to Homes.com traffic data for Homes.com’s 156 million unique monthly visitor accounts (i.e. Homes.com, Apartments Network and Land). Network)—are not the 17 sites of the CoStar Residential Network.
In addition to the traffic issues, Realtor.com also tended to discuss the National Association of Realtors’ settlement, saying the changes will ultimately benefit homebuyers and buyers’ agents. The company launched a national ad campaign in April detailing the tasks a buyer’s agent completes throughout the transaction process — 111, to be exact.
“We are truly united,” Iles said at NAR’s mid-year meeting. “Realtor.com is not seeking to eliminate the MLS or the agency of realtors… We are doing our best to provide leadership from the front.”
Eales did not participate in the company’s earnings call Wednesday afternoon. However, Thomson backed the Move CEO, who believes the portal is uniquely positioned to navigate the post-settlement world thanks to its strong buy-side and sell-side offerings, strategic partnership with Zillow and strong traffic.
“The number of unique users of Realtor.com has grown by 5% month over month, which compares very favorably with Homes.com, which has declined during the same period,” he said. “Realtor.com has increased 1.4x in terms of monthly unique users, and approximately tripled pageviews and time per visit.”
Thomson said his claim was based on third-party data from Comscore, not Google Analytics’ internal traffic data. Many portals use Comscore and Google Analytics to obtain traffic data; however, there is a heated debate over which platform is more accurate.
“Following the legal developments involving NAR, I agree with Move CEO Damian Eales’ recent astute comments about the importance of a buyer’s agent for those seeking professional guidance when making a purchase. It is undoubtedly the most important investment decision for many families,” he said. “We will continue to monitor industry developments closely, but believe Realtor.com is well-positioned to leverage its relationships with homebuyers and buyer and seller agents in this changing environment.”
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