| HomeAdvisor, Microsoft’s online home and real estate Web site. has surpassed Realtor.com as the most-visited real estate site on the Web, according to figures released by Media Metrix Inc. Because of the dramatic increase in consumer traffic and the site’s consistent rating as the best home-buying site by analysts and national publications, HomeAdvisor also has signed dozens of new listing agreements with real estate firms across the country. As a result, the site now boasts more than 1 million online listings.
Reaching 4.2 percent of all Web users in March, the site more than tripled its traffic over the past six months. Those numbers make it both the largest and fastest-growing real estate site in terms of unique users. March data from Media Metrix shows HomeAdvisor ranked first with 3.6 million unique users, followed by Realtor.com with 3.3 million and HomeStore (which includes Move.com) with 3.25 million.
HomeAdvisor also now has thousands of agreements with real estate companies nationwide, providing the site with massive listing coverage across the nation. A recent ranking of real estate Web sites by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine, which named HomeAdvisor the best overall home-buying site on the Web, also said the site turned up more listings than any other real estate site in the several test searches conducted. The listings growth of HomeAdvisor has been propelled by dozens of real estate organizations in markets previously bound to exclusive listing agreements. |
