A News Corp listings portal whose agent "Find a Realtor" directory mixes verified client reviews with paid placement, so prominence partly reflects ad spend, not merit.
What it's really for A national home-listings site; the agent directory is monetized by leads and promoted placement.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its agent directory ratings and reviews, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
Real estate agents and brokers pay the most, through lead subscriptions (e.g., Connections Plus from roughly $200/mo to $1,000+/mo by ZIP) and enhanced profiles, and that spend buys larger, higher-placed visibility in agent search.
Source →- Operating since
- 1996 (30 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- It makes money by selling leads, referral fees, and advertising (enhanced agent profiles and promoted placement) to real estate agents and brokers.
- What they do
- Realtor.com runs a national home-listings site plus an agent directory where consumers can browse agent profiles, star ratings, and client reviews.
- What to watch for
- Top agent visibility is a paid ad product, not an earned ranking: by the platform's own design, enhanced "Local Expert" profiles get larger, higher-placed listings, so the order you see partly reflects who paid.
- Composite score
- 2.10 / 5.00 → grade C-
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- Move, Inc. operates Realtor.com and is owned by News Corp, which acquired Move in September 2014 for $950 million; the site is licensed to operate by the National Association of Realtors and launched publicly in 1996. Source: Wikipedia - Realtor.com →
- Enhanced agent profiles are identified by a yellow border, are about double the size of a basic profile, and appear higher in search results; NAR members are given preferential placement above non-members. This shows paid/enhanced products buy prominence in agent search. Source: NAR - Realtor.com Rolls Out Changes to Its Profiles and Agent Search →
- Realtor.com's Connections Plus lead product is priced by ZIP code and competition, with exclusive leads averaging around $1,000 per month and non-exclusive starting near $200 per month, illustrating that agents pay the platform for leads and visibility. Source: Clever Real Estate - Realtor.com Leads →