Strong Growth at trulia.com and zillow.com

Two leading US property websites are reporting strong growth over 2009. Property search engine trulia.com and real estate marketplace zillow.com have both issued statements about record web traffic, despite the troubling economic times.

Visits to trulia.com grew 40 percent in the first half of the year, as the company reported new records for site traffic, user engagement and revenue.

In the first six months of this year it recorded more than 30 million unique visitors and significant increases in the first half of 2009 across all key traffic and user engagement metrics. Property views increased by more than 90 percent and page views increased by 83 percent across home listings and stats & trends. The company also experienced significant growth in its Trulia Voices Community. Total community contributions increased by 85 percent in the first half of 2009 compared to the first half of 2008.

trulia.com’s success is reflected in the rankings where it is now number 5 in both Hitwise and ComScore’s Real Estate categores.

The company says its growth is a direct result of new product innovations and consumers’ increasing thirst for information on purchasing homes. Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of trulia.com, said:

“Our focus on the consumer and adding in new features and functionality that they have been asking for has been the key to our growth in Q1 and Q2. We’re seeing huge increases not only in visits, but also in consumers contacting agents and advertisers through Trulia.com. This growth in leads gives us confidence about a stabilizing housing market and is attracting more advertisers and revenue on Trulia than ever before.”

At zillow.com it’s a similar story, with the company reporting that it broke multiple records for site traffic and user activity in the first six months of 2009. zillow.com received an average of 8.3 million unique users each month during this period, which is an increase of 67 percent year-over-year. It lists additional milestones as:

• 44 percent year-over-year growth in page views in the first half of 2009.
• 35 percent more for-sale listings on the site in the first half of 2009 versus a year earlier, as the result of more listings feed partnerships with brokerages and Multiple Listings Services. In total, 3.6 million listings are posted on Zillow today.
• More than 535,000 people have downloaded the Zillow iPhone App since its launch in late April, more than any other real estate-related app.
• Consumers submitted 265,000 loan requests on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace in the first six months of 2009. Lenders responded with 3.5 million custom loan quotes during this same period.

While zillow.com, like trulia.com, has introduced several new features over 2009 including a successful iPhone app, zillow.com’s COO, Spencer Rascoff, puts a lot of the company’s growth down to market conditions. In a statement about the record breaking growth he said:

“Home prices continue to drop in many areas, mortgage rates change constantly, and people have a lot of questions about their homes and their local markets. This is driving record numbers of people to visit and engage on Zillow.com. In addition to seeking real estate listings and data, potential buyers and sellers are voracious for information and are asking questions in Zillow Advice, and getting answers from real estate professionals in their communities.”

zillow.com made it to number 3 in June’s Hitwise rankings. zillow.com is very popular in the real estate industry – 25 percent of Zillow’s monthly traffic (2.1 million unique visitors in June) self-identified as being a real estate professional.

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