Realtor.com’s parent company’s revenue increased 10% year over year. The CEO of the company that owns the portal used the opportunity to say that rival Homes.com could be “knocked down.”
Move, the operator and parent company of Realtor.com, saw revenue growth in the final months of 2025 in response to new service offerings and increased audience share. This signaled to the company’s management that it was winning against its main rival in the portal wars.
Move’s revenue rose 10% year over year to $143 million, with the gain largely driven by increased sales from Realtor.com’s seller lead program, RealPRO Select, News Corp announced in its quarterly results Thursday.
News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said in a statement: “We are pleased to report an excellent second quarter result, with revenue and profitability growth accelerating from the previous quarter. There are positive signs for the second half of the financial year.” He added that the outlook for the next quarter is “auspicious.”
Robert Thomson | News Corporation
“Our second quarter results were driven by continued growth in Dow Jones and Digital Real Estate Services, both of which delivered double-digit profit growth and started the calendar year strong,” Thomson said.
Australia-based News Corp. reports its earnings according to a fiscal year schedule, which means its “second quarter” actually means the last three months of the 2025 calendar year.
The company said Move is shifting its focus to more premium services that deliver higher revenue per lead and growth for sellers, new homes and rental businesses.
Average monthly unique visitors to Realtor.com’s website and mobile sites increased 1% year-over-year to approximately 62 million, according to Move’s internal data. Lead levels also increased by 13% on an annual basis. This is a welcome sign after recent quarterly declines.
Meanwhile, Realtor.com averaged 241 million monthly visitors in the second quarter, according to Comscore. That’s 3.4 times Homes.com’s visit share and 2.3 times Redfin’s visit share, Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales said in a blog post on the company’s website. Eales added that during the second quarter, Realtor.com also closed “more than half” of the visit share gap it had with Zillow over the past 18 months.
On a conference call with investors on Thursday, one analyst questioned whether the company was concerned about the amount of capital being pumped into Homes.com and whether News Corp felt it was a threat to Realtor.com. Thomson said the company is “delighted” with Realtor.com’s progress, and suggested it’s a bit “unkind” to compare the two portals at this point, since Homes.com is now considered “at least a fixer-upper,” if not a “knockdown” by some estimates.
Realtor.com also held the title for most audience engagement during the quarter with 4.8 visits per unique visitor, Eales said in the post.
Eales added that the portal continues to grow its audience through its News Corp membership, allowing Realtor.com to leverage its brand and content with highly motivated buyers from News Corp publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s.
“In the midst of the longest housing recession in our history and unprecedented competition, Realtor.com has proven once again that growth comes from staying focused on the needs of our customers and our industry,” Eales said in a blog post.
Damien Eales |Credit: Realtor.com
“We are putting our customers first by simplifying discovery and leveraging artificial intelligence to make it easier for consumers to connect with experts,” the CEO continued. “We offer an enhanced premium value proposition to real estate agents through our RealPro Select program, giving every real estate agent access to our audience through our online store. We have performed exceptionally well in our growing business, especially our seller business, and we provide listing agents with the most engaged audience in the industry.”
Eales touted that Realtor.com has an “industry-first” model that champions the industry and makes MLS a “champion.” He also used the opportunity to criticize what he called “closed platforms that intentionally limit consumer choice” by restricting access to certain agents and directing users to their own mortgage services, which he said ultimately harms homebuyers and sellers.
Eales said this pro-industry attitude led the company to launch Realtor.com+ last month. The platform is a platform available exclusively through the MLS that provides a collaborative home search experience for agent and home buyer clients. Eels said there are currently 16 MLSs signed on to the platform, with more expected to join “soon.”
“We believe that our continued focus on customer and industry integrity will drive our future growth,” Eales concluded.
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