Growth Challenges: Zillow vs. realtor.com

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Last week both Zillow Group and News Corp’s realtor.com announced quarterly financial results, revealing two companies in starkly different periods of growth. Zillow is growing, realtor.com is not, and the latter is making significant moves to change course.

Differing Growth Trajectories

The largest revenue driver for each business is selling leads to real estate agents: Zillow’s Premier Agent program and realtor.com’s real estate revenues.

In the most recent quarter ending March 31, 2020, Zillow’s premier agent business grew by $24 million (11 percent) compared to the same period in 2019. By comparison, realtor.com’s real estate revenue did not grow at all. In the quarter before that, Zillow’s premier agent program grew by $12.5 million (6 percent), compared to $4 million (4 percent) at realtor.com.

 
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Over the past six months, Zillow's real estate lead gen business has demonstrated solid growth while realtor.com's has struggled.

Leadership Changes

Over the past two years, Zillow’s premier agent program has certainly had its challenges, with growth slowing significantly for a period of time before reaccelerating. The decline -- and resurgence -- in growth pivoted around a leadership change in February 2019, with Rich Barton taking the reins as CEO.

 
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Annual revenue growth at realtor.com has fluctuated over the past two years, dipping into negative territory on a number of recent occasions. In the past year, revenue growth has only been positive in one out of four quarters. Similar to Zillow, a leadership change occurred in the midst of the decline, with the departure of the CEO in June 2019.

 
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Both companies have struggled with revenue growth, and investors -- along with corporate owners -- clearly don’t like stagnation. Chief executives were replaced in both companies when revenue growth stalled.

The recent strategy at realtor.com reflects a significant effort to correct its past lackluster performance. This year, a permanent CEO was appointed in January, several longtime execs were replaced by a pair of Opcity leaders in April, and significant layoffs were enacted in May. These are all bold moves made in an effort to restore growth.