Online real estate marketplace Trulia has announced it has acquired Market Leader, a provider of Software as a Service (SaaS)-based customer relationship management (CRM) software for the real estate sector.
Trulia say the acquisition was made for around $355 million, “or an implied price of $11.33 per share”, which is based on Trulia’s closing share price on Tuesday, May 7.
Available on the Web, in addition to its iPad, iPhone and Android apps, Trulia is a platform aimed at homebuyers, sellers, owners and would-be renters, arming them with the latest gen on properties, places and those who work in real estate. Users can learn about agents, neighborhoods, schools, crime, commute times and even ask the local community questions.
We reported last August that Trulia had filed for an IPO, which finally came to fruition the following month. This followed two key executive acquisitions from eBay and Google.
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Trulia say that Market Leader’s shareholders will receive $6.00 in cash, and 0.1553 shares of Trulia’s common stock for each share of Market Leader common stock.
“Our acquisition of Market Leader will create unprecedented value for our customer base while also accelerating our growth,” says Pete Flint, Chief Executive Officer of Trulia. “Marrying our 31 million monthly unique visitors with Market Leader’s robust offerings and extensive partnerships with leading real estate franchisors and brokerages creates a company that will play an even more integral role driving value to the real estate industry.”
Market Leader’s existing tech essentially offers daily workflow tools and helps real estate agents manage leads and see deals through to completion. The deal will see the merging of Trulia and Market Leader’s platforms, meaning agents will have access to more market data, and will lead to a combined premium membership-base of around 46,000 users.
Flint says that they are looking to help brokerages and franchisors enhance agents’ productivity by offering “comprehensive solutions” via Web and mobile devices. “Our combined platform also will enable agents to increase their follow-up capabilities, engagement with clients and the return on investment on their leads,” he says.
From a consumer perspective, Trulia says they will benefit from “improved responsiveness” from agents.
The acquisition is still, of course, subject to the usual regulatory closing conditions, as well as approval of majority Market Leader shareholders, but is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of 2013.
While the combined company will be headquartered in San Francisco, the Market Leader team will remain in Kirkland, Washington State, and will be used as a sales hubs for SaaS-based CRM. The Market Leader brand will continue it seems too, operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trulia.
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