We’re tracking some interesting moves in the world of online real estate today.
First off, Trulia has completed a debt offering that raised $223.3 million, with $30 million of that going to repurchase shares of common stock and another $7.2 million to be used to pay off debts. In a SEC filing, Trulia said it planned to use the remainder of the net proceeds for working capital and other general corporate purposes, including the possibility to “acquire or invest in complementary businesses, products, services, technologies, or other assets.”
Trulia made a big bet earlier this year when it gobbled up Kirkland-based Market Leader for $355 million. Could some new acquisitions be in the works?
That’s certainly a path that Zillow has taken in recent years, buying up a host of companies. But the latest deal from Seattle-based Zillow appears to be on the partnership front, with the company emerging as the new search option in AOL Real Estate.
Inman News spotted the “powered by Zillow” branding on the AOL site — pointing out that the deal comes a few day after it was announced that Move Inc.’s Realtor.com unit was ending its 2-year-old agreement with AOL.
Inman reports:
Already the leader in Web market share, the addition of AOL Real Estate’s Web traffic will further boost Zillow’s lead over its competitors Trulia and realtor.com, who maintain their own networks.
Zillow already has a deal to provide rental and for-sale listing information to Yahoo, also selling advertising on behalf of the network.
In an email, Zillow spokeswoman Cynthia Nowak confirmed the deal with AOL Real Estate.
“Starting today, AOL Real Estate users will have access to millions of for-sale and for-rent listings from Zillow, as well as to Zillow’s unique inventory of 1 million pre-market listings. With this partnership, Zillow is now the exclusive provider of for-sale and for-rent listings to four of the top 15 real estate sites in the country (Zillow, Yahoo! Homes, AOL Real Estate, HGTV’s FrontDoor.com: Experian Hitwise).”
She declined to disclose terms of the deal, or potential traffic forecasts from AOL. Inman reports that AOL Real Estate was the ninth most visited real estate site in the country, attracting about six million visits per month.
