Zillow Buys Its Rival, Trulia, for $3.5 Billion

• July 28, 2014

by Lark Turner

Late last week, rumors started circulating about real estate search giant Zillow buying its rival, Trulia. The two companies together command about 90 percent of hits to the top 15 real estate search sites.

Now they’re joining forces, making Zillow the undisputed leader in the real estate search game. Zillow will buy Trulia for $3.5 billion in stock — $1.5 billion more than reports suggested last week. Stock at both companies shot up last week after news of the rumored merger was published by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.

You can consider Zillow under contract to buy Trulia, though Zillow said in a news release that the sale is subject to certain closing conditions, plus approval from regulators and shareholders. The company said the sale should be finalized in 2015.

Zillow and Trulia both make money by selling ads to real estate agents and featuring paid listings in search results. UrbanTurf readers are probably very familiar with the two services from their own home searches. Both companies also crunch real estate data, and UrbanTurf often talks to Trulia’s head economist, Jed Kolko, about housing trends.

In the statement from Zillow, the company’s CEO, Spencer Rascoff, suggested consumers would benefit from the merger.

“Consumers love using Zillow and Trulia to find vital information about homes and connect with the best local real estate professionals,” he said. “Both companies have been enormously successful in creating compelling consumer brands and deep industry partnerships, but it’s still early days in the world of real estate advertising on mobile and Web. This is a tremendous opportunity to combine our resources and achieve even more impressive innovation that will benefit consumers and the real estate industry.”

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/zillow_buys_its_rival_trulia_for_3.5_billion/8789