News Corp., owner of realtor.com operator Move Inc., is spreading its luxury real estate wings with today’s launch of Mansion Global, a homebuyer-focused site that will display high-end properties and editorial content from around the globe in English, Spanish and Chinese.
News Corp. launched the first version of Mansion in 2012, which is run by The Wall Street Journal and covers news about luxury real estate including industry statistics and high-end financing, while the media conglomerate’s worldwide business news subsidiary, Dow Jones, oversees the new luxury global edition, which has more of a focus on actual listings.
The site launches with between 75,000 and 100,000 listings sourced from more than 50 brokerages and companies from high-end property hot spots like London, New York City, Miami, Sydney, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, said Trevor Fellows, head of global ad sales for The Wall Street Journal, which handles ad sales for the site.
The definition of “luxury” varies depending on the market, but the site’s listings threshold sits in the range of $2 million U.S. dollars, he said.
A brainchild of News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson, the site has been in the works for close to two years — well before the global media giant’s November acquisition of Move — so listing content from realtor.com is not featured on the site at the moment, Fellows said. But talks are in process, he said.
The new site offer a glimpse of how News Corp. may merge its growing real estate listing empire with its vast, diverse editorial content — as it has already done to some extent with realtor.com.
News Corp.’s stakes in property portals from around the world
| Portal, country | News Corp. stake in portal’s operator |
| realtor.com, U.S. | 80% |
| realestate.com.au, Australia | 61.6% |
| iProperty, Southeast Asia | “Substantial stake” |
| PropTiger.com, India | 25% |
Source: News Corp.
Mansion Global launches with a vast majority of the listings from luxury franchise network Sotheby’s International Realty and will eventually source listings directly from agents, Fellows said.
Listing brokers and agents pay a monthly fee to list their properties on the site, which also features a variety of ad types for them to choose from, including featured listings on search results pages and the home page. Real estate pros can choose to market listings singly or in package deals.
While real estate has a number of luxury real estate listing sites including independent brokerage network Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s Luxury Portfolio, Sotheby’s International Realty and Christie’s International Real Estate, Fellows said Mansion Global stands out because it’s an inclusive site, open to lavish listings from all brands and organizations.
Adding to its distinction in real estate, the site will also feature unique, high-quality editorial content designed to help international buyers understand the complexities and unique factors affecting the purchase of real estate in specific locations, like the ins and outs of New York City’s byzantine tax code, for example, Fellows added.
Another unique feature of the site is the info it has on new developments, Wall Street Journal ad sales exec Evan Chadakoff told Inman. It will have a section dedicated to new developments, with some projects featured in their own pages on the site. (See a sample page here.)
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to note that Mansion, like Mansion Global, has an international scope, and is not just U.S.-focused as a previous version of this story stated.