Trulia, realtor.com see double-digit traffic growth

The companies behind two of the biggest real estate search portals on the Internet — Trulia and realtor.com — say double-digit annual growth in traffic to their sites helped spark equally impressive surges in revenue.

Realtor.com operator Move Inc. says monthly unique users to the company’s Web and mobile sites grew by 22 percent during the third quarter from a year ago, to an average of 28 million.

That helped the company boost its biggest source of revenue — consumer advertising — by 14 percent, to $45.6 million.

A 41 percent increase in revenue from software and services products to $13.2 million helped Move grow revenue for the quarter by 19 percent, to $58.8 million. Move said it now expects 2013 revenue will total approximately $227 million.

After the National Association of Realtors voted in July to amend the realtor.com operating agreement, the website added information on more than 48,000 new-home plans and thousands of communities, 30,000 rental properties and thousands of additional for-sale listings, the company said.

“The third quarter was a strong quarter for Move, with both consumer advertising revenue and software and services revenue growing, resulting in our eighth straight quarter of sequential revenue growth,” said Move CEO Steve Berkowitz in a statement. “We are continuing to execute efficiently and effectively, and will continue to capitalize on the market opportunity in front of us.”

Trulia — reporting combined quarterly results with Market Leader for the first time since an Aug. 20 merger — said total revenue for the third quarter was up 59 percent from a year ago, to $48.1 million, when including Market Leader revenue of $14.3 million on a “pro forma” basis for the full quarter. Marketplace revenue was up 96 percent to $24.8 million, and media revenue was up 52 percent to $9 million.

Key business metrics included:

• a 42 percent increase in “Trulia stand-alone” monthly unique visitors, to 35.3 million.
• 6.2 million unique visitors to 120,000 agent websites powered by Market Leader.
• an 88 percent increase in “Trulia stand-alone” mobile visitors, to 14.5 million.
• 1.3 million mobile visitors to agent websites powered by Market Leader.
• a 13 percent increase in “Trulia stand-alone” subscribers from the previous quarter, to 36,401.
• a 7 percent increase in Market Leader premium subscribers from the previous quarter, to 25,084.

Average monthly revenue per Trulia subscriber was up 21 percent from a year ago, to $186, while revenue per Market Leader subscriber averaged $155.

Trulia estimated that there was a 20 percent overlap between Trulia and Market Leader subscribers.

“Trulia and Market Leader now offer an unprecedented, end-to-end marketing solution for real estate professionals, and we are already seeing evidence of the rapid adoption of our platform by the industry,” said Trulia CEO Pete Flint in a statement. “Trulia’s vibrant marketplace for consumers and real estate professionals, combined with Market Leader’s comprehensive operating system for the real estate industry, enabled us to add almost 5,900 more subscribers this quarter — the most we have ever added in a quarter.”

Flint said that Trulia is well on its way to a long-term goal of securing 250,000 subscribers who will pay an average of $450 per month to advertise with the portal.