A newcomer to the so-called portal wars announced a major partnership on Monday. A new portal named addressUSA has teamed up with Gannett, one of the nation’s largest news publishers, to provide another space for consumers to view home listings and generate referrals for agents.
AddressUSA, an upstart attempt to go national with a platform that has been tested in a few regional markets, would tap into Gannett’s readership as part of the years-long agreement, the companies announced.
With the move, addressUSA joins a crowded group of portals offering consumers a space to view listings online. By teaming up with Gannett, the company lands an audience that could make it a serious competitor, and Gannett gains a new revenue stream via referrals.
“Real estate information and tools are important for our audience of 195 million average monthly unique visitors as they search for a home to buy or sell or simply want to explore properties as real estate enthusiasts,” Mike Reed, Gannett chairman and chief executive officer, said. “AddressUSA will enable us to drive further audience growth and engagement, enhancing the overall experience for readers to be inspired by what’s available in their local market.”
AddressUSA now becomes the latest competitor looking to go to battle for consumer attention with behemoths like Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin and Homes.com, all of them much larger and more established brands in the space. Rather than leaning on heavy financing, addressUSA seems to be leaning into media partnerships to help it gain momentum in the crowded market.
It appears the announcement was made while addressUSA was still rolling out its website and features, as the website still showed errors and other glitches hours after the announcement, and there was no readily available place to direct questions.
The platform has several articles that were posted in recent weeks and which appear to have been written primarily by artificial intelligence.
It’s not immediately clear whether the offering will be available nationwide, either, as the company provides a list of broker information in 27 states.
It appears the platform is using the broker services of a company called RE50, LLC, which offers licensing compliance services for real estate platforms operating in multiple states. That company was founded by Lee Leslie, a real estate legal expert who has served in C-suite and founder roles for companies like LendingTree Loans, HouseTech, Ten-X and Auction.com.
The news release announcing the partnership with Gannett quoted Paul Huntsman as chairman of AddressUSA. It is not yet clear if that’s the same Paul Huntsman who previously owned the Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s largest newspaper.
However, the Huntsman who owned the Tribune recently founded the Coronado News outside San Diego and stepped down from his role as board chair of the Salt Lake newspaper. On the top menu of Coronado News is a link to a platform called addressSD, a portal for homes in southern California.
“We are excited to partner with Gannett and the USA TODAY Network launching a groundbreaking real estate marketplace hub for homebuyers, sellers, real estate agents and vendors to connect,” Huntsman said in the release. “Gannett’s unrivaled reach at both local and national levels will allow us to engage with a broad and powerful audience.”
Seven of the eight featured agents listed on the website are based in Arizona. The eighth is in San Diego.
One of those featured agents is Realty One Group’s John Reckard. He said he signed up to be affiliated with the new company as an alternative to the other major portals and to begin receiving referrals.
“I haven’t had much success with it yet,” Reckard said, “but the launch just happened.”
