Preface with a quote from Real Estate News 2024 article – The Ten: The portal wars, and how the gloves came off in 2024. For CoStar and Move, the battle for dominance escalated from civil competition to full-scale attacks. Zillow and other players, meanwhile, stayed out of it. The major real estate search portals have long competed for consumer attention, with Zillow, Realtor.com and Redfin And then Homes.com entered the race….

And now – GeekWire: Could Google crush the “portal wars” once and for all? A key Google partner is starting to display home listing details directly in search results, prompting some industry experts and analysts to question what impact the feature could have on the traffic — and financials — of major portal players like Zillow, Realtor.com and others. A ‘controlled experiment’: In some markets, Google’s data partner HouseCanary and its IDX site ComeHome are beginning to experiment with placing home listings at the top of Google search results, complete with basic details, price, images and a “Request a tour” button. According to HouseCanary, the company is licensed in all 50 states and in Washington, D.C., as a full-service brokerage.  Real estate consultant and analyst Mike DelPrete was the first to report on the pilot listing initiative.  HouseCanary offered some insight into the “controlled experiment” via an announcement on LinkedIn this week, suggesting that the company and Google “are innovating” and “pushing into new territory” with the effort. “Before this test started, we contacted and notified every MLS in the regions included. We are working with those MLSs directly and we have active, ongoing communication with them throughout the test. If an MLS has questions or concerns, we address them directly and promptly,” the announcement reads…