Housing News
Move partners with AOL, what is next for real estate search?
In the past year, major real estate search sites have partnered with media channels like CNNMoney to provide listings to their network. Zillow partnered with Yahoo! Real Estate to be the listings source, Trulia partnered with CNNMoney.com and Move, Inc. (parent company of Realtor.com) renewed their content distribution agreement with MSN.
This week, AOL Real Estate announced that they too will be partnering with Move, Inc. to distribute real estate listings. AOL has made several major moves in this same vein to boost their content, namely purchasing TechCrunch to be their exclusive tech content provider. As AOL’s purchases help their network grow in size, this gives Move, Inc. a network size boost as well.
Beginning in the third quarter of this year, “millions of listings will be syndicated to AOL Real Estate via Move’s ListHub network,” according to Audie Chamberlain, Community Manager at Move, Inc.
So what does this all mean?
As the battle for who’s the biggest continues to heat up, the Move, Inc. network is already the largest and we suspect this partnership will increase its size substantially. We predict that Trulia and Zillow will announce other partnerships this year as well, but with Move, Inc. owning ListHub, they have a natural advantage.
So the landscape for major real estate search companies looks a little like this (with the Realtor as the original source of course):
This does not include all partnerships and of course excludes the smaller real estate search companies, board activity and the like, but this gives you an idea of the changing landscape and a very simplistic view of where your listings are spread to naturally.
We believe that this year will be a big year for announcements of this nature and we’d love to hear what you think in the comments as to which of the big three will be next to announce a partnership?
AG is not affiliated with Zillow, Trulia or any of their partners. Realtor.com, a Move, Inc. company is an advertiser on AG.
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Housing News
Average age of houses on the rise, so is it now better or worse to buy new?
With aging housing in America, are first-time buyers better off buying new or existing homes? The average age of a home is rising, as is the price of new housing, so a shift could be upon us.
The average home age is higher than ever
(REALUOSO.COM) – In a survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS), the median age of homes in the United States was 35 years old. In Texas, homes are a bit younger with the median age between 19 – 29 years. The northeast has the oldest homes, with the median age between 50 – 61 years. In 1985, the median age of a home was only 23 years.
With more houses around 40 years old, the National Association of Realtors asserts that homeowners will have to undertake remodeling and renovation projects before selling unless the home is sold as-is, in which case the buyer will be responsible to update their new residence. Even homeowners who aren’t selling will need to consider remodeling for structural and aesthetic reasons.
Prices of new homes on the rise
Newer homes cost more than they used to. The price differential between new homes and older homes has increased from 10 percent traditionally to around 37 percent in 2014. This is due to rising construction costs, scarcity of lots, and a low inventory of new homes that doesn’t meet the demand.
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Housing News
Are Realtors the real loser in the fight between Zillow Group and Move, Inc.?
The last year has been one of dramatic and rapid change in the real estate tech sector, but Realtors are vulnerable, and we’re worried.
Why Realtors are vulnerable to these rapid changes
(REALUOSO.COM) – Corporate warfare demands headlines in every industry, but in the real estate tech sector, a storm has been brewing for years, which in the last year has come to a head. Zillow Group and Move, Inc. (which is owned by News Corp. and operates ListHub, Realtor.com, TopProducer, and other brands) have been competing for a decade now, and the race has appeared to be an aggressive yet polite boxing match. Last year, the gloves came off, and now, they’ve drawn swords and appear to want blood.
Note: We’ll let you decide which company plays which role in the image above.
So how then, does any of this make Realtors the victims of this sword fight? Let’s get everyone up to speed, and then we’ll discuss.
1. Zillow poaches top talent, Move/NAR sues
It all started last year when the gloves came off – Move’s Chief Strategy Officer (who was also Realtor.com’s President), Errol Samuelson jumped ship and joined Zillow on the same day he phoned in his resignation without notice. He left under questionable circumstances, which has led to a lengthy legal battle (wherein Move and NAR have sued Zillow and Samuelson over allegations of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and misappropriation of trade secrets), with the most recent motion being for contempt, which a judge granted to Move/NAR after the mysterious “Samuelson Memo” surfaced.
Salt was added to the wound when Move awarded Samuelson’s job to Move veteran, Curt Beardsley, who days after Samuelson left, also defected to Zillow. This too led to a lawsuit, with allegations including breach of contract, violation of corporations code, illegal dumping of stocks, and Move has sought restitution. These charges are extremely serious, but demanded slightly less attention than the ongoing lawsuit against Samuelson.
2. Two major media brands emerge
Last fall, the News Corp. acquisition of Move, Inc. was given the green light by the feds, and this month, Zillow finalized their acquisition of Trulia.
…Click here to continue reading this story…
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Coleen DeGroff
January 15, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Lani – thanks for keeping us updated. With Move/msn being the 800 pound gorilla what does that mean for strength of syndication efforts of the other 2 major players?
Bob Wilson
January 17, 2011 at 3:04 pm
They will trail Move.
AOL’s biz model now is one of content generator and the amount of content they create is staggering. The roll out of AOL’s Patch.com and their presence at Inman is simply the precursor to the announcement that Move’s syndication arm will be bringing listings to a Patch.com sub-domain near you.
Like it or not, the days of the agent web site on page 1 on Google are numbered for most. But they will have plenty of opportunities to advertise on the networks that will have displaced them.
The myth that is “hyperlocal” that has been propagated by too many of the RE marketing gurus (ironically with no real online marketing experience of their own) will be exposed, as these niche sites dont have the ability to compete on a search engine with the big brands.
Go big or go home.
Agent for Movoto
January 17, 2011 at 2:05 pm
It’ll be interesting to see what Zillow does next . . . . Yahoo! is not the most glamorous partner, and Z’s agent reviews feature is making a pretty big splash.