The leader in online property search is REALTOR.com, operated by their parent company Move, Inc. In an announcement today, Move renewed the agreement with MSN to power their property search.
Move has been under considerable pressure from upstarts, Trulia and Zillow who have been skirmishing to secure relationships with newspapers and other portals to power their search. Recently Zillow announced a partnership with Yahoo! Beginning soon, all listings sent to Zillow will also appear on realestate.Yahoo.com.
Move shores up their position of the aggregate leader with this renewal of MSN – targeting more than 18 Million consumers on a monthly basis. It demonstrates that the relationship between Microsoft and MOVE is important to both companies. Although unconfirmed, you can bet that Trulia and Zillow were trying hard to win the MSN account.
MSN’s traffic took a rather large and seemingly unexplainable bounce in May of this year. It could be driven by Bing. I am not sure. But their traffic went up from 2.5 Million monthly visitors in April to 7.4 million visitors in August. That is more than just seasonal change.
Here is the full press release
CAMPBELL, CA (November 2, 2010) Move, Inc. (NASDAQ: MOVE), the leader in online real estate, today announced it has renewed its content distribution agreement with online leader MSN, thereby continuing to deliver unmatched reach and value to advertisers interested in targeting the 18.6 million Moves Chief Executive Officer, Steve Berkowitz, said, “By increasing our online presence through distribution agreements with leaders like MSN, Move creates unparalleled opportunities for advertisers to reach beyond our network to an even greater audience searching for reliable and fresh real estate listings and homeownership information.” Berkowitz continues by explaining that Moves content distribution partners, including MSN, understand the value of displaying the largest and most accurate collection of property listing content available on their sites, and trust Move to ensure their visitors online property search experience includes the freshest and most accurate property details available on the Internet. “One of the reasons Move remains the leader in online real estate is because of our valued relationships with the 933+ Multiple Listing Services nationwide,” says Berkowitz. “Because of these relationships, Move is in the unique position to update approximately 75 percent of the property listings on our network every 15 minutes. By delivering the largest and most accurate real estate content search experience, Move remains an efficient and effective online marketing solution for our content distribution partners and our advertisers.” Berkowitz goes on to say that while reach, traffic and content search experience are vital for advertisers to consider, audience quality is an equally important consideration for advertisers. “Move continually attracts the largest audience of consumers as compared to other real estate websites, which is important to advertisers,” Berkowitz says. “At the same time, data shows a significant portion of our traffic is considered to be of the highest quality because they are part of the top 20 percent that regularly search the real estate category[3]. By increasing our online footprint through content distribution agreements with partners like MSN, and by delivering the best online search experience to consumers, Moves advertisers will continue to reach the right consumers at the right time.” With the recently renewed agreement, MSN visitors interested in searching for real estate can continue to access millions of property listings and relevant information from the Move Network by going to the Money tab located on the MSN homepage, and selecting Real Estate & Rentals. In addition to finding properties and reliable information on area schools, community features, sold prices, home values and more, MSN visitors clicking to the Move Network can also connect directly with Realtors®, mortgage services, and professional movers to help make the process of buying and selling a home easier. Move has served as a provider of real estate listing content to MSN since 2003. # # # ABOUT MOVE, INC. Move, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOVE) is the leader in online real estate with 13.3[4] million monthly visitors to its online network of websites. Move, Inc. operates: Move.com, a leading destination for information on new homes and rental listings, moving, home and garden and home finance; Realtor.com®, the official website of the National Association of REALTORS®; Moving.com; SeniorHousingNet; TOP PRODUCER Systems, and ListHub. Move, Inc. is based in Campbell, California. ABOUT MSN AND WINDOWS LIVE Overall, MSN, Windows Live and Microsoft.com attract more than 600 million unique users worldwide per month. With localized versions available globally in 46 markets and 21 languages, MSN is a world leader in delivering Web services to consumers and online advertising opportunities to businesses worldwide. This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including information about management’s view of Move’s future expectations, plans and prospects, within the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the results of Move, its subsidiaries, divisions and concepts to be materially different than those expressed or implied in such statements. These risk factors and others are included from time to time in documents Move files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to, its Form 10-Ks, Form 10-Qs and Form 8-Ks. Other unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on Move’s future results. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date hereof. Move cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Finally, Move expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
