Ryan O’ Hara, who for over four years has spearheaded Rupert Murdoch‘s push into the real-estate listings space as chief executive of Realtor.com operator Move Inc., has left the company, News Corp. announced Thursday.
“I am grateful to Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson and News Corp. for affording me the opportunity to lead five different businesses on two continents over two stints with this great company,” O’ Hara said in a statement. He is leaving to take a leadership position in another industry, the company said. Tracey Fellows was named Acting CEO of Move Inc.
Under O’Hara, Realtor.com more than tripled its user base, the company said, with over 73 million users as of May. News Corp. bought Move Inc. for $950 million in late 2014, in a bid to establish dominance in the $15 billion agent-advertising market.
It has taken direct aim at Zillow, the market leader both nationally and in New York through its StreetEasy subsidiary: In 2017, when StreetEasy was battling with the Real Estate Board of New York and refused to accept the trade group’s syndicated listings feed, Realtor.com announced that it would take the feed. While StreetEasy was being bombarded by criticism from leading New York brokerages over its Premier Agent program, Realtor.com was striking deals with those same brokerages. And in an ad campaign in early 2018, Realtor claimed it had 20 percent more listings in New York than StreetEasy.
This past October, Move closed on its acquisition of OpCity, a platform that matches buyers and sellers with brokers.
The digital real estate services division is a major revenue driver for News Corp., generating over $1.1 billion in 2018, according to the company.
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