Wall Street is buzzing about Microsoft's extremely generous offer to buy Yahoo! for $45 billion, which is a 62 percent premium over what Yahoo! closed the market for on Thursday before the offer was made public. By Friday, the shares had doubled in price.

The deal, once consummated, will create a viable competitor to Google. Google has 56.3 market share of online searches, while Yahoo! (17.7 percent) and MSN (13.8) combined have about 31.5 percent.

The battle of these titans should shake up the consumer experience, including buyers looking for real estate. Both companies have been heavily courting Realtors, franchises, MLSs and any other source of listings and advertising.

It might surprise you to learn that the number one topic searched on the Internet isn't Britney Spears or Super Bowl ads. It's real estate. An astounding 58 percent of Internet searches are on Google, which also registers about 58 percent of all real estate searches.

So this contest matters, but as long as Microsoft is throwing money around, it should think about acquiring Move.com.

Here's why. In real estate, neither MSN or Yahoo! is number one.

That honor belongs to Realtor.com, the most visited website on the Web, according to comScore, a traffic-tracking firm. Realtor.com is the official website of the National Association of Realtors, and is operated for the NAR through an iron-clad agreement with Move.com.

Out of more than 100 real estate sites tracked by Hitwise, Realtor.com was number one with an 8.03 market share in December. It has the most listings of any real estate website, and reached about 4.4 million consumers in December, and that was one of the worst months in real estate history. And it doesn't hurt that number two was Move.com, with 2.73 percent market share.

For one-third of homebuyers, searching for homes on the Internet is the first step they take. Eighty-four percent of buyers use the Internet in the home search process, says NAR.

Most buyers (54 percent) used local multiple listing services, which is understandable, but the next most popular site was Realtor.com, probably because most consumers realize that Realtor.com gets the majority of its listings from MLS organizations.

And like all real-estate-related stocks, Move.com has taken a beating lately. Gone are the high-flying days when tech stocks were king, and Move.com (then called Homestore) beat Microsoft's HomeAdvisor to a bloody pulp. It would be a good time for Microsoft to pick up its old nemesis at a bargain price -- not for revenge, but because it would be a good move, no pun intended.

Realtor.com's traffic is high-quality. Users spend 110 minutes versus 13 minutes on Yahoo!. That's an 800 percent difference. Not even close.

And that brings us to revenues. Total ad spending on real estate was down three percent in 2007, but spending online grew 25.8 percent, hitting $2.6 billion, says Borrell Associates. At this rate, online real estate advertising will grow 12.4 percent in 2008.

So if it's market share Microsoft is after, that can be obtained rather easily by bidding for the strongest search portals, but you also have to think about where consumers dock. And in real estate, that's Realtor.com.

Published: February 4, 2008

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Blanche Evans is the award-winning senior editor of Realty Times, the Internet's leading independent real estate news service. She is featured daily on the Realty Times Video Network in the "Realty Viewpoint" segment. Blanche has been named one of the "25 Most Influential People In Real Estate" by REALTOR Magazine, and has been twice recognized as a "notable." In 2005, she was named "Top Reporter Covering the NAR" by Delahaye-Bacon's. Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. To contact Blanche, email her at . For more articles by Blanche, click here.