Realtor.com’s revenues decline as portal wars intensify

Now that the portal wars have flared up, Makelaar.com’Revenues have cooled. During the fourth quarter of the financial year Move, Inc., the parent company of Realtor.composted a 2% annual revenue decline to $143 million, according to an announcement Thursday.

NewsCorpMove’s parent company, attributed the decline to higher mortgage rates and macroeconomic headwinds.

Turnover from Move’s real estate segment, which represents approximately 80% of Move’s total turnover, fell by 2% year-on-year. Realtor.com‘s lead volume and website traffic growth remained flat year-over-year.

According to internal data shared during the call, executives said Realtor.comWebsite traffic averaged 74 million unique visitors per month.

Despite Move’s revenue decline, NewsCorp’s digital real estate segment still posted strong results for the quarter, including a 21% year-over-year revenue increase to $448 million.

As a whole, NewsCorp reported 2% annual revenue growth to $10.09 billion for the full fiscal year, while the digital real estate services sector reported an 8% revenue increase to $1.6 billion for the full fiscal year, despite a 10% decline . in Move’s annual revenue to $544 million. Total real estate revenues declined 11% annually for the full year as referrals and core lead generation production declined.

As the company looks ahead, Chief Financial Officer Susan Panuccio said NewsCorp was working to diversify its revenue base.

“As we communicated last quarter, we are focused on best positioning Realtor.com for a housing recovery,” Panuccio said. “Our key strategic focus areas remain the same as we move into the new financial year and include modernizing our technology stack; investing in content across our product offering, including most recently the release of a new dynamic mapping feature; and leveraging News Corp’s network to grow audience share.”

Despite being a hot topic, NewsCorp CEO Robert Thomson did not address the portal wars and Move’s lawsuit against its portal listing rival CoStar. However, Thomson praised Damian Eales, the CEO of Realtor.com for his leadership, noting that the company was ready to address the coming changes in business practices, as outlined in the National Association of Real Estate Agentssettlement agreement for provisional case.

“The market appears to be on the verge of an upturn,” said Thomson. “I must say that Damian has done an excellent job of making the most of our media platforms to raise awareness [Realtor.com] and generate traffic.”