How does Move win by losing a top realtor.com exec?

Errol Samuelson joins the Zillow team

This afternoon, Zillow announced that former president of realtor.com and Chief Strategy Officer at Move, Inc. will be their new Chief Industry Development Officer to direct the company’s relations with the industry. This comes on the heels of Trulia announcing that John Whitney, the VP of ListHub (a Move company) to shore up their listing accuracy.

“I’m excited about joining Zillow because I believe the company is leading the real estate industry in innovation and serving consumer needs. Equally important, I believe the entire management team truly understands the essential role real estate professionals play, is committed to their success, and wants to create deeper, mutually beneficial partnerships with the industry,” said Samuelson. “We’re in the midst of an exciting era in real estate, and I look forward to working with Zillow and the real estate industry to ensure that Zillow is the absolute best partner it can be. My first priority will be to listen, and incorporate the industry’s feedback to evolve Zillow’s technology and partnership programs.”

“We’re thrilled for Errol to join the Zillow family. We’ve long admired Errol for his leadership as well as his perspective and approach in advocating on behalf of the real estate industry to embrace and leverage evolving technology and times,” said Rascoff. “We place tremendous value on fostering great partnerships and building innovative products that support our industry partners, and Errol is the right person to lead this new role.”

Samuelson served as president of REALTOR.com® since February 2007 and was appointed Chief Strategy Officer of Move, Inc. in April 2013. Real estate trade publication Inman News named Samuelson among the 100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders each of the years 2007 through 2013. He joined Move, Inc. in 2003, previously serving as president of Move subsidiary, Top Producer Systems. Prior to Move, he was director of real estate, mortgage banking, and law enforcement verticals at GTE Enterprise Solutions, and previously was director of sales, marketing and product management at MPR Teltech. Samuelson holds a bachelor’s in electronics engineering from Simon Fraser University.

How exactly is this a win for realtor.com?

Losing Samuelson to Zillow and Whitney to Trulia is being praised as wins for realtor.com competitors, but this could actually be a huge win if realtor.com takes advantage of the opportunity to bring in new blood. They’re headquartered in Silicon Valley and could tap into some of the top tech talent in the world. They’ve struggled to innovate, and it is unclear whether that is because of their hands being more tied than their competitors, their strategy, or their customers rejecting innovation (or a combination of all three).

Realtor.com has the chance to revitalize their entire company, and shedding the weight may end up boosting their stock prices, if they don’t take for granted that this is a huge opportunity. Maybe they’ll bring in some top talent from Facebook, Twitter, Square, or even YCombinator. The world is their oyster now that they have this chance to innovate and help bring their constituency into the 21st century to catch up with their internal ideas. Maybe this time, they’ll have someone in that role that can roll out products without offending most of the industry. For the sake of members of the National Association of Realtors, we sure hope so.

UPDATE 1: Move, Inc. has now announced that Curt Beardsley has been promoted to replace Samuelson.

UPDATE 2: Beardsley has followed in Samuelson’s footsteps, leaving days after publication of this story.