Real estate web sites Trulia and Zillow are both reporting growth, according to Search Engine Watch. Truila announced record growth in March, while Zillow announced an agreement to build co-branded real estate web sites for a consortium of 180 community newspapers. This makes Trulia and Zillow increaslingly important resources for realtors.

Compete.com shows significant growth for both Zwillow and Trulia over the past several months, as shown below. We note that Compete's panel does not conform to Trulia's reported Q1 growth, at lest reporting through February. By comparison, Google Trends reports relatively flat search traffic on the terms "real estate" and "homes for sale". It would appear that Zillow and Trulia are taking market share from other sites, perhaps the sites of realtors themselves.

What does this mean for realtors? We expect it's going to be increasingly difficult to draw people to the realtor's web site. Given that, realtors have an oportunity to engage with potential buyers and sellers on Zillow and Trulia. There is also an opportunity to focus locally and build online reputation through a variety of social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter.

It's going to be up to the realtors to find their customers online and to connect with them where they are. Customers are searching for "real estate" or "homes for sale", but they are increasingly searching out "zillow" and "trulia". Trulia's blog talks about Trulia's presence on Twitter.

Trulia is chasing Zwillow for real estate shoppers. The opportunity is for realtors to become even more nimble. One strategy is to connect ubiquitously to their own local communities as real estate clients, homeowners and potential homeowners, become more connected online.

Labels: nalytics, real estate, social media, trulia, web analytics, zillow