The Real Estate Board of New York is partnering with Move, Inc., the operator of Realtor.com, in its latest maneuver against StreetEasy and its Premier Agent feature.
REBNY recently launched its own Residential Listing Service, a centralized syndication feed of residential sales and rental listings across the city. The new service, which was launched on August 1, appears to be a direct response to StreetEasy’s Premier Agent program, which has been criticized for allegedly misleading buyers.
The REBNY-Move agreement means that RLS listings will be displayed in Realtor.com. The residential listing website, which attracts about 60 million unique users each month, is guaranteed to have a competitive advantage against its rival. According to an earlier report from the Real Deal, four brokerages, TOWN Residential, Compass, Brown Harris Stevens and Stribling, have already pulled their listings from StreetEasy.
“The addition of realtor.com to RLS syndication is a significant step in our ongoing efforts to increase the visibility and reach of New York City’s most accurate and consistent listing information to consumers,” said John Banks, REBNY’s President.
In spite of the prospect of heightened competition, StreetEasy remains confident that it will retain its user base. “As a New York City-only real estate marketplace, StreetEasy is committed to providing consumers and agents with an experience that is tailored for this very specific and nuanced market. It’s an experience you can’t find anywhere else – not even on our Zillow Group sister sites. This is what keeps consumers coming back and fuels the tremendous size of our consumer audience – 5 million visits to rental listings driving 25 million rental listing views, and 5 million visits to sales listings driving 20 million sales listing views each month,” Susan Daimler, StreetEasy’s general manager, told Real Estate Weekly.
According to the terms of the deal, listings from RLS brokerage firms, which covers more than 12,860 agent, will be displayed in Realtor.com and its affiliated services. This includes rentals-only site Doorsteps and the Global Property Net, which attracts 200 million unique users from 70 countries every month.
Meanwhile, RLS firms will gain access to the Realtor.com dashboard, which provides updates on listings and leads. RLS firms will be able to display listings on Realtor.com and its mobile app later this month. “This agreement with REBNY will build on Realtor.com’s growing presence in New York, allowing us to enhance the consumer experience in one of the world’s largest real estate markets, and provide more opportunities for agents to engage with the millions of home buyers and sellers who rely on Realtor.com for the most up-to-date and comprehensive listing data,” said Ray Picard, Realtor.com’s executive vice president of sales.
REBNY members would have to opt-in to the service. So far, brokerages that intend to join the service include BOND New York, Citi Habitats, The Corcoran Group, CORE, Fox Residential Group, Halstead Property, Leslie J. Garfield & Co. and Warburg Realty.
