Because the rivalry with CoStar Group simmers, Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales is concentrated on housing coverage and bridging gaps between the {industry} and customers, he advised a crowd Thursday at ICNY.
Can’t be part of us in particular person at Inman Join New York? Don’t miss out on insights and techniques shared by over 250 industry-leading audio system throughout 75+ classes. With a Digital Cross, you’ll get all of the instruments you want to navigate challenges and seize alternatives — delivered straight to your display screen, wherever you might be!
Though a lot of 2024’s headlines targeted on Realtor.com’s fierce battle with CoStar, CEO Damian Eales stated the rivalry is towards the underside of his priorities — particularly as an intensifying housing scarcity threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Realtors.
Damian Eales | Credit score: AJ Canaria Artistic Providers
“And even if they only reduced commissions by, let’s say, a percentage point, which was probably their goal, that pales into insignificance with the real issue, which is housing supply,” he added. “So what you’ll see from us in the year ahead is a real focus on shining a light on the issue that America is short 7.2 million homes and it gets worse every year because we’re not building enough stock to deal with the supply.”
Eales stated tackling housing provide constraints is a “win-win” for brokers and customers; nevertheless, the {industry} has to do a greater job speaking with customers and decision-makers concerning the insurance policies that may supercharge housing begins and sluggish residence value progress to a extra sustainable stage.
“If we’re seriously going to take on Zillow, we need to challenge ourselves. We’re the number one most trusted brand by consumers in this country. We want to be the number one largest portal in this country,” he stated. “It’s going to take us some time to get there. And if we’re going to do it, we’re going to have to be a better alternative for consumers. We’re going to have to grow our audience. And we’re going to have to be a better alternative for customers.”
Echoing his opponents, Eales stated a part of changing into higher for homebuyers, homesellers, and brokers will undoubtedly embrace leveraging synthetic intelligence to enhance the Realtor.com platform. The corporate’s tech workforce has already used AI to overtake search capabilities on the location, which allows customers to make use of pure language and color-coded maps to simply discover their most well-liked listings.
On the agent aspect, Eales stated Realtor.com is deploying AI to extend productiveness and assist them maximize outcomes from Realtor.com’s portfolio of lead-gen merchandise.
“We’re partnering with companies like Ylopo, for instance, to help us vet leads, to ensure that leads are of higher value, and help us to nurture leads to take some of the burden off agents so that they can be more productive in their role,” he stated. “I think that there are going to be enormous advances in AI’s ability to help train agents to identify good agent performance, poor agent performance, and we’ll be at the forefront of those developments.”
As for what 2025 holds, Eales stated he’s prepared for the following wave of competitors as AI and market headwinds problem portals to up their worth proposition.
“We love competition at Realtor.com. We think it’s our role to become better for our customers and for consumers through competing really aggressively and last year was a very aggressive playing field,” he stated. “I’d like to think, though, that despite all of the investments that CoStar made in the industry, we fended them off… And today, we’re very focused on Zillow.”
“They’re to be admired in many respects, but they’re very much a consumer-centric organization. In every speech that I ever hear from representatives from their company, they start first and foremost with the consumer,” he added. “I think, not to say that consumers are unimportant, we spend a lot of time talking to consumers and agonizing over our consumer experience. But I think we’re a different company. You know, we say that we’re building for the industry.”
E mail Marian McPherson
