Who's #1 when it comes to Internet real estate sites?

It used to be no contest, the winner by a wide margin was always Realtor.com.

But now there's a race and HomeAdvisor is claiming the front spot.

For the first time, MediaMetrix, has ranked HomeAdvisor as the largest individual realty site. In March, says the rating service, HomeAdvisor had 3.6 million unique visitors. In second and third place were Realtor.com (3.3 million) and HomeStore sites (3.25 million). Other sites with more than 1 million visitors included the Springstreet sites (1.85 million) and HomeGain (1.1 million).

But Realtor.com, says HomeStore, had 4.87 million unique users for March according to Nielsen/NetRatings, up 30 percent from February, thus also claiming the title as the #1 real estate Web site.

Realtor.com, official site of the National Association of Realtors, is operated by HomeStore.

HomeAdvisor is owned by Microsoft and is part of the MSN network. Ian Morris, HomeAdvisor's product unit manager, describes MSN as "the largest consumer portal in the world."

"As the house and home channel for the MSN network," explains Morris, "HomeAdvisor is extensively integrated throughout several MSN channels and is literally just a click away for more than 250 million consumers every month."

In addition, says Morris, HomeAdvisor's reach has expanded as a result of "several successful online marketing campaigns and dozens of new listings agreements with leading real estate companies such as Prudential Fox & Roach, Stovroff Realty and others."

"We offer consumers a single site that helps them with every home-related decision while sending thousands of leads to real estate professionals every day," Morris explains.

Last year, HomeAdvisor announced that it had obtained $100 million in new capital, formed alliances with a series of major industry players, and introduced the Realty Desktop transaction platform.

"Realty Desktop is still the only national transaction management tool available for licensing to brokers nationwide," says Morris. The system, he says, "is already in use by several real estate organizations. We've heard positive feedback from those who have seen the product in the past couple months, and we look forward to announcing more customers in the coming weeks."

Meanwhile, HomeStore reports that its "family of sites" attracted 9.6 million unique users in March, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Homestore.com, Inc.'s sites include Homestore.com, Realtor.com, HomeBuilder.com, SpringStreet.com, and HomeFair.com. In Febraury, Homestore completed the acquision of Move.com from Cendant Corporation.

"We're proud of our record of attracting consumers to all our sites, as well as our leading edge in keeping the consumer interested in our content for millions of minutes each month," stated Stuart Wolff, HomeStore's chairman and chief executive.

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