14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo is outsourcing more of its properties, though this latest deal doesn’t go as deep as previous ones. Yahoo has signed a partnership with Zillow to power its for-sale real-estate listings. All the for-sale entries on Yahoo Real Estates will now be provided by Zillow in a deal for an undisclosed sum. The two sites are number two and number three in the US market.
Yahoo has been turning its non-core businesses over to third-parties in an effort to drive costs down and focus on its core interests. Yahoo recently outsourced its Personals site to Match.com. Other under-performing, non-essential properties have been shut down altogether.
The integration of Zillow data will mean some changes for Yahoo Real Estates. So far, the company has been relying on big-name marketers for the listings on the site. Zillow is more focused on local real-estate brokers and Yahoo says this creates an opportunity to sell more local advertising. The move also increases the number of listings available on Yahoo Real Estates from three million to four million.
Users will be able to access the same filters and options from the Zillow site on Yahoo Real Estates as well. However, Yahoo says that it is still in charge of the site and it will not turn into a Zillow clone. Yahoo will continue to offer rental listings from other sources. For the two companies, the deal is more than just sharing listings, the advertising on both sites will be handled in partnership. Ads and featured listings purchased will appear on both sites.
Zillow is the number two website in the real estate listings market and Yahoo is the third. The two companies say only 10 percent of their users overlap, so the two of them combined should be able to challenge Move.com, the leader of the market in the US.