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what next for zoopla realtor or zillow





Speculation has been mounting after CFO stepped down from zoopla.co.uk , a successful FTSE 250 company, that saw a transformation  2015  and estate agents returning back  it's site after the debacle of onthemarket.




As @onthemarketblog commented last year, is a perfect storm brewing for a takeover bid for zoopla.?

Two immediate candidates spring to mind, US property portals  Realtor and Zillow.
I'll start with zillow which after posting strong quarterlies last year and new  vigor from homes-buyers , it kinda rules zillow out. .




Always in the mix Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff discusses the state of the American consumer.

Realtor on the other hand was acquired  by Rupert Murdoch, late 2014 via move Inc and now part of News Corp portfolio of porperty portals, that include REA Group, the most likely candidate .





Rupert Murdoch hinting at acquisition of UK property portals,being overvalued ,Only when the price is right Inman Connect 2015



Looking at general web traffic, it's evident that realtor, has not gained traction.
Furthermore secondment REA of chief of sales, to help realtor subscription fees, did not work.

So whats the benefit ? it's the old adage with a combined property stock of US , UK and European property listing stock it creates huge eye ball data statistics ,giving a perfect synergy with diversification of revenue streams.

Average monthly UV traffic 2015 [not page views]

Zillow + Trulia 78 million
Realtor 34 million
Zoopla  44.7 million 
REA Group Real Estate Australia 32 million










What also makes zoopla attractive is their acquisition, of price comparison site uswitch for £240m, whether this will also be on the negotiation table remains to be seen, as it was operated as a separate business entity.

By combining the comparison site, realtor would have a immense future potential, in advertising from utilities suppliers,smart home tech operators, from north America Europe and Asia pacific.


Stateside ..

…(T)he number of listings being provided, still varies widely from city to city. According to comScore, Zillow and Trulia combined attract far more web traffic than Realtor.com,” Romem says. “However, since News Corp (NWSA) acquired realtor.com the number of unique visitors to that site has steadily grown.”

Romem says that depending on the market, the portal buyers choose to search may be more important than they realize. realtor.com has an advantage despite getting less traffic than Zillow Group’s combined sites, he says.



“Before its recent acquisition by News Corp, realtor.com operator Move, Inc. had a 10-year head start, backed by the National Association of Realtors,” BuildZoom.com Chief Economist Issi Romem  says. “This advantage has translated into the realtor.com site having more timely, accurate and comprehensive nationwide listings. This is a result of receiving and updating data from almost all of the 800+ multiple listing services in the U.S. every 15 minutes.”

He says that the discrepancy between the number and quality of listings available on the Zillow Group portals and on realtor.com attracted a great deal of attention in April, when ListHub — a key aggregator of MLS data, now controlled by News Corp — terminated the contract, and stopped providing listing information to Zillow Group.

“In anticipation of the event, Zillow Group scrambled to negotiate its own agreements with individual MLSs to obtain listings which it had previously obtained from ListHub. By mid 2015 Zillow Group had signed agreements with just over 300 MLSs,” BuildZoom's Romem says. “We tracked the overnight change in the number of listings on the different portals after ListHub’s agreement with Zillow Group expired. Since then, we have kept track of the listing coverage for the core cities of the 51 largest U.S. metro areas.”

The following chart reports the number of listings on Zillow.com as a share of the number of listings on realtor.com, contrasting April 15 to Sept. 21 of last year.





Google Trends world wide reach using search terms , giving a rough idea of brand awareness by people search property



click to enlarge

Although righmove has the greatest UK  domestic marketshare ,for property search in UK zoopla shows greater outside reach.


Zillow






realtor 




News-corp owns property sites in Asia Pacific including India

Zoopla







Rightmove









Unlike UK online hybrid estate agencies ,the US hybrids still charge a large fee , which is vastly greater than the set fixed fee, of UK online estate agents, giving better deal , with recent official UK government endorsement of business model also.


more info at  sure-field brokerage 

Other US hybrid brokerage models have set up of recent years including  most notable redfin.

In early 2007, the firm had 74 active listings of the 16,900 in the local multiple listing service and abruptly stopped taking on new business. Small footprint, big funding Hybrid brokerages haven’t picked up much market share so far. Two exceptions would be Redfin and Compass, the venture-backed New York City brokerage that has invested heavily in developing technology for its agents and clients. 

Redfin says it employs more than 1,000 salaried agents in 72 markets. Compass, which has largely morphed into a traditional brokerage and no longer offers a discount listing fee, said it’s ranked sixth by listing volume in New York City and Washington, D.C. The brokerage is also setting up shop in Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, according to CEO Robert Reffkin.


Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, takes us back to a tense board meeting when they discussed eliminating the Redfin customer commission refund. The outcome of the meeting was surprising, and ultimately gave Kelman permission to think a bit irrationally in favor of their customers.


In the UK emoov easyproperty purplebricks [housesimple who recently like other online agents changed payment plan - No Sale No Fee]  and iamtheagent have all be growing in property stock and sales volume, not to forget confidence from actual consumer funding via the crowd platforms , venture capital and hedge funds.Eurostat data also shows the uk as the online capital of Europe and recent official UK retail figures also reinforced online growth


zoopla righmove share price year to date





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