Zillow Still Leads the Web with 298 Million Visits, While Homes.com Grows 113%

Changes in share of traffic show Realtor.com, OneHome performing the worst

Similarweb’s latest look at the real estate industry’s leading search sites for buying and selling homes in the U.S. shows an overall 8% year-over-year decrease in visits in the month of March. Seasonally, the category traffic increased by 15% over the previous month. In the first quarter of 2023, category traffic was 6% lower than the previous year.

In March, Homes.com saw the most growth in web traffic on a year-over-year basis at 113%, with no other site experiencing a substantial gain. Rocket Homes saw a 52% year-over-year web traffic decline, and Century 21 saw a 43% drop in traffic.

Zillow led in the share of traffic among real estate peers for the month of March 2023 (based on a look at seventeen leading peers) with a 43% share estimate. Zillow is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings on May 3. Redfin showed a notable share gain this month of almost one percentage point and is scheduled to report earnings on May 4.

Key metrics

• When Zillow, Trulia, and Streeteasy are combined, their market share of traffic exceeds 52% of the category and represents Zillow Group’s leading position. Overall, the top 10 sites control 98% of traffic share.
• Only four of the seventeen sites tracked saw a year-over-year increase in traffic: Homes.com, RE/MAX, Compass, and eXp Realty.
• Homes.com, Zillow, and Redfin were the share gain leaders, while Realtor.com, OneHome, and Century 21 lost the most share.

Web traffic growth shows Homes.com performed best, Rocket Homes worst, continuing trend

We watch traffic to these home search sites as a proxy for potential demand, as most consumers visit these websites before making in-person visits and purchases. The chart below shows the change in web traffic on a year-over-year basis. Homes.com saw major growth, while Rocket Homes performed the worst. Homes.com appears to be benefiting from increased advertising spend, while the sharp increase in mortgage rates is likely negatively impacting traffic to Rocket Homes. Realtor.com saw a substantial decrease in traffic of 20% year-over-year, which is notable given its traffic volume.

In the first quarter of 2023, visits to Homes.com grew 101% year-over-year, while Rocket Homes’ traffic decreased 52% year-over-year.

Share of traffic finds Zillow still leading, peers still lagging  

The below chart shows the relative market share of each company in the peer group relative to each other (share of traffic). Zillow leads with 43%, followed by Realtor.com at 19%, Redfin at 15%, and Trulia at 7%. Traffic to Compass, Keller Williams, and eXp Realty barely registers amongst peers, while they are industry leaders in transaction units and volume.

Changes in share of traffic show Realtor.com, Trulia performing worst

Shifts in share of traffic year-over-year show that Realtor (-2.9 percentage points) and OneHome (-0.6 percentage point) performed worst in March, while Homes.com (+2.0 percentage points) and Zillow (+1.2 percentage points) did the best.

Zillow has shown a consistent lead over the past year, while Homes.com recently saw a sharp gain. Realtor.com has been fading over the past twelve months.

In the first quarter of 2023, Zillow and Homes.com increased their market share by 1.8 percentage points each year-over-year, while Realtor.com’s share decreased by 3.3 percentage points.

The list of the real estate sites in this report and their traffic rankings is below.

Publicly traded companies that own the websites mentioned in this report include Zillow Group (NASDAQ: Z, ZG), Redfin (NYSE: RDFN), News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA), CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSTR), Rocket Companies (NASDAQ: RKT), eXp World Holdings (NYSE: EXPI), Opendoor (NASDAQ: OPEN), Anywhere Real Estate (NASDAQ: HOUS), RE/MAX Holdings (NASDAQ: RMAX), Compass (NYSE: COMP). 

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Contact: For more information, please write to press@similarweb.com.

Citation: Please refer to Similarweb as a digital intelligence platform. If online, please link back to www.similarweb.com or the most relevant blog post.

Report By: Raymond “RJ” Jones, VP Communications & Insights, Similarweb

Methodology

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by RJ Jones

Vice President of Investor Relations, Communications, Insights, and Sustainability

Vice President of Investor Relations, Communications, Insights, and Sustainability