News Corp in $950-mn to acquire Australian real estate listing company Move Inc

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp announced yesterday a $950-million agreement to acquire Australia's third-largest online real estate listing company, Move Inc, integrating News Corp with Realtor.com, which saw 26 million visitors, www.latimes.com reported.

The move was aimed at helping Murdoch's publishing company diversify after it split from 21st Century Fox. It was also a bid to create a viable competitor to online real estate giants Zillow and Trulia, which were in the process of merging.

According to commentators, the online real estate business was in fast track growth mode, with agents and brokers shifting ever greater chunks of their $14 billion in annual advertising dollars towards data-rich digital and mobile platforms rather than print.

That spending was scattered across hundreds of local and national sites, and if it could be consolidated into big portals like Move's Realtor.com the move would be profitable, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson told analysts yesterday.

He said News Corp believed there was a massive market opportunity in the US for online real estate revenue. He added, the market was in the early stages of development.

Move said in a press release, "News Corp and Move, Inc announced today that News Corp has agreed to acquire Move, a leading online real estate business that brings consumers and Realtors together to facilitate the sale and rental of real estate in the United States.

REA Group, which is 61.6-per cent owned by News Corp, and is the operator of the leading Australian residential property website, realestate.com.au, plans to hold a 20-per cent stake in Move with 80 per cent held by News Corp.

Through realtor.com and its mobile applications, Move displays more than 98 per cent of all for-sale properties listed in the US, sourced directly from relationships with more than 800 'multiple listing services' across the country. As a result, Move has the most up-to-date and accurate for-sale listings of any online real estate company in America. The Move Network of websites, which also includes Move.com, reaches approximately 35 million people per month, who spend an average of 22 minutes each on its sites.

Move's content advantage makes it well-positioned to capitalise on the fast-growing US online real estate sector and the world's largest residential real estate market.

More than 5 million homes in the US are bought and sold each year, representing over $1 trillion in annual transaction volume. Agents and brokers were expected to spend approximately $14 billion in 2014 marketing homes (up from approximately $11 billion in 2012), and an additional $11 billion will be spent by mortgage providers.