Realtor.com's 'Trust' claim gets OK following CoStar complaint 

In the ongoing tit-for-tat between home search competitors Realtor.com and Homes.com, a complaint brought to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs by CoStar regarding a prominent Realtor.com ad campaign which claims that the website is the "#1 Site Real Estate Professionals Trust" has been settled.

What the BBB had to say: NAD has ruled in favor of Move and Realtor.com, saying the company "provided a reasonable basis" for the claim via a double-blind survey — a format that seeks to cut down on bias in the input and output of the results — of 1,300 agents that the company commissioned in August 2023. The BBB said the "survey was reliable support for the claim."

However, the ad watchdog group warned the company that it couldn't lean on the results of the survey in perpetuity and that its "most trusted" claims would have to be tested again. Move says in its advertiser disclosure that it "has already conducted a newer survey in August 2024" and that "Realtor.com remains the '#1 site real estate professionals trust.'"

Move confirmed that it has updated its ads to point to the new survey data.

What is NAD? The National Advertising Division is just one of several different internal groups of BBB National Programs that reviews and provides commentary on disputes surrounding advertising campaigns and claims made by major corporations — including puffery, proper disclosures, and the proper use of endorsements.

A second marketing win for Realtor.com over CoStar: Earlier this year, NAD weighed in on another dispute between Move and CoStar, this time related to a prominent advertising campaign claiming that Homes.com had 156 unique visitors and twice the traffic of Realtor.com. NAD said at the time that Homes.com's monthly unique visitors claim should be discontinued because the figure was based on "combined total traffic, calculated using Google Analytics, for 16 other CoStar websites." 

CoStar ultimately agreed to change two high-profile ads following NAD's recommendation, and Realtor.com is taking heed of its second win against CoStar via BBB National Programs rulings. 

"NAD's independent confirmation further cements Realtor.com as the No. 1 most trusted site by real estate professionals. Trust is not just a tagline — it drives our business," a Realtor.com spokesperson said in a prepared statement shared with Real Estate News. "Our ads influence where customers invest their hard-earned marketing dollars, and we don't take that responsibility lightly."

CoStar's response? A representative for CoStar told Real Estate News that the company continues "to believe that Realtor.com's approach of selling off leads is bad for agents and bad for consumers," but didn't directly address NAD's decision.