Yahoo latest partnership calls for Zillow to handle sales of local real estate ads

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Yahoo farms out for-sale home listings to Zillow

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. is turning over its listings of homes for sale and other local real estate advertising to an online specialist in the field, Zillow.com.

The alliance announced Friday calls for Zillow.com to oversee a network that will place the home listings and ads from local real estate brokers on Yahoo as well as its own 4-year-old website.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, will continue to sell national real estate ads bought by financial services, according to Steve Schultz, head of the company’s real estate service.

Financial terms of the multiyear partnership weren’t disclosed.

The deal shapes up as a coup for Zillow.com, a privately held, Seattle-based company primarily known for tracking home values throughout the U.S. Zillow.com’s home-value estimates have been featured on Yahoo’s real estate site since 2006.

Yahoo increasingly is bringing in other companies to run some services to lower its costs and focus more on its strengths in news, finance, entertainment, sports and e-mail.

Since Yahoo hired Carol Bartz 18 months ago, the company has brought in Microsoft Corp. to power its Internet search engine, farmed out its online dating service to IAC/InterActiveCorp’s Match.com, and handed over its mapping service to Nokia Corp.

Bartz is counting on her strategy to boost Yahoo’s revenue after an extended slump that battered the company’s stock.