Move Inc. CEO Ryan O’Hara is leaving the company, parent company News Corp. confirmed Thursday. Move Inc. is the operator of realtor.com.
Ryan O’Hara. | Photo credit: realtor.com
“I am grateful to Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson and News Corp. for affording me the opportunity to lead five different businesses on two continents over two stints with this great company,” O’Hara said in a statement.
“My time at Move has been especially rewarding both professionally and personally. I am proud of the business results and the many great professionals I worked with who helped achieve them. There is no doubt that realtor.com is smartly positioned for an even brighter future.”
O’Hara has been the CEO of Move Inc. and in charge of its portal brand realtor.com since 2014. Move Inc. is a subsidiary of News Corp.
He’s leaving on June 18 and set take another CEO role in another industry, the company’s announcement says.
Tracey Fellows, the current president of global digital real estate at News Corp will serve as the acting CEO of Move while the search for a new CEO is underway.
“[O’Hara] has transformed realtor.com, overseeing a period of remarkable growth, with revenues more than doubling during his tenure,” Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp said in a statement.
“[O’Hara] and the talented team have helped realtor.com more than triple the number of unique users since our acquisition less than five years ago, reaching an all-time record of more than 73 million in May.”
Realtor.com, one of the largest home search portals online, has been undergoing changes since Move acquired lead qualification and referral service Opcity last year. It has been testing replacing its traditional lead generation service with Opcity’s referral offering in certain markets.
In May, the company laid off a sales team that had been working in Scottsdale, Arizona, and told Inman it was consolidating its sales efforts in an existing California office.
Revenue from digital real estate services at News Corp. fell 3 percent year-over-year during the company’s third quarter fiscal year 2019 earnings. However, Move’s revenue alone increased 5 percent, hitting $121 million. Realtor.com also saw a 7 percent growth in unique users.
Thomson said on the earnings call with investors there were 209 million visits to realtor.com in April, which he added represents “record traffic.”
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Correction: This article and headline originally said that O’Hara’s departure occurred concurrent with “mass layoffs” at realtor.com, based on a source. No layoffs occurred, according to a realtor.com spokesperson, and we have since updated and corrected the story accordingly.