According to techcrunch.com, Market Leader recently purchased RealEstate.com. The cost of the transaction was $8.25 million.
The buyer, Market Leader, is a National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ)-listed provider of online marketing and technology solutions for use by real estate professionals.
Since this time last year, Market Leader has seen a 43 percent revenue increase. The number of real estate officials reportedly using Market Leader’s software and services has reached 60,000, tripled from this same quarter last year.
Now, the domain name and website attached to RealEstate.com belong to the Market Leader company, along with RealEstate.com’s network of over 250 participating brokerage companies.
The purpose of RealEstate.com is to offer consumers a comprehensive suite of real estate services, tools and advice as they work through the home buying or selling process. The site has access to nearly 2 million listings in over 22,000 cities across the country.
Market Leader bought RealEstate.com through two subsidiaries of Tree.com, which already closed down another of its real estate brokerage companies in March due to loss of agents and revenue.
Earlier this year, Market Leader acquired kwkly, a mobile lead-generation platform, and SharperAgent, a real estate marketing suite company. In August, Market Leader launched a tool known as Market Insider which provides customized reports of housing market statistics and demographic trends in a specific area.
Market Leader has big plans for its newest acquisition. The company plans to further grow RealEstate.com as a lead-generation platform for its 60,000-plus real estate customers, and as a consumer site that will leverage Market Leader’s partnerships with multiple listing services across the nation.
“We are committed to helping our customers meet engaged homebuyers and sellers, and RealEstate.com will help us meet the rapidly growing demand for our services while at the same time lowering our costs to deliver them,” said Ian Morris, Market Leader’s CEO.
Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/21/market-leader-buys-realestate-com-for-an-undisclosed-sum.