Foreclosure, virtual tour sites join Hitwise top-20
ForeclosureStore, Homegain see jump in rankings
By Inman News, Monday, February 9, 2009.ForeclosureStore.com, a foreclosure-related real estate search site, and virtual tour company VisualTour.com joined a monthly top-20 list of popular real estate sites in January, Web metrics company Hitwise reported today. ForeclosureStore.com had ranked 27th in December 2008, and VisualTour.com ranked 22nd that month.
Real estate marketing site Homegain.com moved up three places to sixth on the list from December 2008 to January 2009 and apartment-search portal MyNewPlace.com dropped from 19th in December to 16th in January, Hitwise also reported.
The Hitwise rankings are based on the market share of visits to real estate sites among the company's sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. The company tracked data for 3,247 real estate category Web sites in January.
Longtime leader Realtor.com maintained it's dominance on the list with 6.7 percent market share in January among real estate sites tracked by Hitwise, and Yahoo's RealEstate.Yahoo.com remained in second with 3.38 percent market share in January, down from 4.12 percent in December.
Zillow.com was third on the list with 2.9 percent market share in January, followed by ZipRealty.com (2.36 percent), Rent.com (2.17 percent), Homegain.com (1.95 percent), ReMax.com (1.86 percent), ServiceMagic.com (1.79 percent), HUD.gov (1.63 percent), and Trulia.com (1.49 percent).
Move.com, which ranked 19th in December, and WhiteFence.com, which ranked 20th in December, left the top-20 list in January.
About 66.2 percent of all traffic to real estate Web sites went to the top-100 sites in that category in January, roughly level with the December share. And the average visit duration for real estate category Web sites was 12 minutes, 14 seconds in January, up from 11 minutes, 47 seconds in December.
Seven sites joined the Hitwise top-100 list in January that were not on the list in December: RatePlug.com (from 194th to 70th), MyDreamHomeMakeover.com (did not rank in December, 72nd in January), ForeclosuresToGo.com (106th to 75th), LivingChoices.com (115th to 79th), RentalHouses.com (109th to 85th), ForeclosureToGo.com (120th to 92nd), and HarmonHomes.com (112th to 97th).
The seven sites that left the top-100 list in January include: Realtor.org (62nd to 113th), Westfield.com.au (66th to 161st), HomeScape.com (70th to 240th), LandsofAmerica.com (72nd to 126th), Movoto.Foreclosure.com (87th to 107th), GoSection8.com (95th to 111st), and RealtyBid.com (98th to 169th).
Top real estate search terms leading to real estate Web sites during the four-week period ending Jan. 31 include: "realtor.com," "remax," "zillow," "apartments for rent," "real estate," "zillow.com," "century21," "remax.com homes for sale," "realtor," and "homes for sale."
Fast-moving sites -- which made substantial gains in the Hitwise rankings during the four-month period ending January 2009, include: BostonRealEstate.com (up 1,189 places), LandToday.com (up 884 places), NewHomes.NJ.com (up 704 places), NeighborCity.com (up 474 places), VillageRealtyOBX.com (up 298 places), ResortVacationProperties.com (up 250 places), RealTimeRental.com (up 224 places), SunRealtyNC.com (up 154 places), HomeAway.com (up 22 places), and ForeclosureStore.com (up 10 places).
***
What's your opinion? Leave your comments below or send a letter to the editor.
All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.
Bookmarking Sites
You must login or register to post a comment.
Submitted by Greg Salera on February 9, 2009 - 2:11pm.
As a Realtor.com featured listing subscriber I'm happy to see Realtor.com remain number one of all the sites. As far as the others, my web hosting company is Ihouse and they send all my listings to realestate.yahoo.com, My online prospecting service provider is HomeGain where I've experienced phenomenal success, and my web virtual tour provider is visualtour.com. These 3 companies do know what they're doing and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for service providers!
Greg Salera
Partners Real Estate
9300-A Old Keene Mill Rd
Burke, VA 22015
www.virginiarealtyservices.com
Submitted by Louis Cammarosano on February 9, 2009 - 2:58pm.
I take these traffic rankings with a grain of salt. At HomeGain traffic QUALITY is far more important than traffic QUANTITY.
That's why you will never see HomeGain issue press releases offering to value to the White House as Zillow did in January.
While such stunts produce traffic, I would doubt many of those visitors are the types of serious home buyers or sellers that REALTORS would want exposure to.
Submitted by Leonard Z on April 13, 2009 - 6:38pm.
People may face foreclosure for many reasons. Extreme changes in life situations like death, divorce, prolonged illness and many others, or because they must immediately relocate. Foreclosure can occur when payments become three to four or more months late, depending on the mortgage terms. Foreclosure is becoming pandemic these days. So many thousands of people are losing their jobs, and with the loss of income the rate of foreclosure has been going up. People are losing both their mortgage and their home. If you can do so, then getting a cash advance to stem it off isn't a bad idea. Refinancing, lowering monthly payments and interest can give a bit more breathing room as well. In today's economy, it is most definitely in your best interest to do whatever you can, including getting a cash advance to stem off foreclosure.