The Truth about Traffic
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CoStar’s Homes.com claims to be the #2 portal based on traffic, but there is a significant discrepancy between its self-reported numbers and third-party traffic measurement tools.
Why it matters: Real estate portals derive their power from traffic; that exposure is what they sell to agents – and the third-party tools all show Homes.com in fourth, not second, place.
All three independent, third-party traffic measurement tools (Comscore, Similarweb, and Semrush) show Homes.com’s traffic as significantly lower than its self-reported numbers.
Yes, but: This is common across all of the portals – the key is the ratio between the third-party tools and the self-reported traffic numbers.
That ratio for the other major portals is similar and has remained consistent over time, with self-reported traffic about 1.6x higher than what’s reported by Comscore.
Homes.com is the outlier; after parity in 2023, its self-reported traffic has increased to 2.6x higher than what’s reported by Comscore.
Dig deeper: It’s not just Comscore.
Self-reported traffic of the other major portals is about 1.8x higher that what’s reported by Similarweb, compared to 3.2x for Homes.com.
Comscore’s tracking shows Homes.com in fourth place behind Redfin.
There is a massive traffic increase peaking in September 2023, but the portal fails to consistently beat Redfin, let alone challenge the leaders.
Similarweb’s audience measurement shows a similar story, with Homes.com in fourth place after significant gains in late 2023.
Homes.com’s traffic increased 7x between 2022 and September 2023, a noteworthy achievement, but it never reaches the #2 position.
On the topic of traffic, there are other outliers on Homes.com itself, including listings with millions of views.
The example below, from this listing, has 4.14 million views, while the same listing on Zillow has 132 views at the time of writing.
According to the Homes.com listing analytics for another property with 1.17 million views, it turns out that 1.14 million, or 98 percent, come from the Property Search Page – that’s the search results page (here’s an example).
The number of views for the actual listing is 2,834, a somewhat smaller number than 1.17 million (but still significantly higher than the 327 listing views on Zillow).
While interesting, this doesn’t account for Homes.com’s self-reported traffic discrepancy.
So, listen: In the past I’ve claimed that Homes.com was the #2 portal based on traffic, which is true, but that claim requires an important qualifier: it’s based on self-reported traffic.
It’s becoming clear that there is a growing discrepancy between Homes.com’s self-reported traffic and multiple, independent traffic measurement tools.
The bottom line: In a recent article, I said “it’s easy to tell whatever story you want by subtly manipulating the display of data.”
With this level of advertising spend it’s easy to get carried away with big headline numbers, but it’s vitally important to stay informed with fact-based insights.
In the end, traffic is only a brief stopover on the way to the ultimate arbiter of value: revenue from paying customers (stay tuned, that’s coming up next).
