Zillow Partners with Chinese Platform, Leju

SEATTLE—Zillow Inc., the leading real estate information marketplace, is now powering the US real estate search for Leju Holdings Limited (“Leju”) an affiliate of E-House (China) Holdings Limited, a leading real estate services company in China. Leju operates several leading real estate and home furnishing websites of SINA Corporation, Baidu Inc., and its main website, leju.com, as well as various mobile applications along with local websites covering more than 250 cities. Chinese home shoppers who search for US homes on Leju’s platforms now have access to Zillow’s robust home search experience, rich data on homes, millions of for-sale listings, and unique pre-market inventory, through a co-branded Zillow-Leju site. “Chinese home shoppers represent an untapped opportunity not only to U.S. sellers, but to agents and brokers as well,” said Amy Bohutinsky, Zillow chief marketing officer. “Chinese home buyers spent $22 billion in the US last year – nearly doubling what they spent in the previous year(ii) – and this co-branded site will make it easy for them to not only find the U.S. home of their dreams, but also connect with a local real estate professional who can help make that dream a reality. We are excited to offer this opportunity to the thousands of brokers and agents who choose to market their listings on Zillow.” Agents and brokers whose listings appear on Zillow will also automatically appear on the co-branded site, with no additional effort or cost. Chinese buyers are the largest population of foreign buyers of U.S. homes.  The median price of the homes they purchased was approximately $523,148, with 76% of purchases reported as all-cash purchases. “We are pleased to offer Leju visitors the opportunity to have unparalleled access to the number one real estate website in the U.S.,” said Geoffrey Yinyu He, Leju’s chief executive officer. “For Chinese buyers who are looking to invest in the U.S. market, we now provide easy access to a comprehensive amount of listings, which will simplify the remote house hunting experience.” Financial terms of Zillow’s first international partnership were not disclosed.