Zillow & Trulia Merger

LA TIMES | Tim Logan

The nation’s two biggest real estate listing websites announced Monday that they’re joining forces.

Zillow Inc. will buy Trulia for $3.5 billion in stock, the Seattle-based company said. The deal is expected to close in 2015.

While both popular websites will retain their names and separate sites, their merger will create a giant in the burgeoning business of online real estate listings. Zillow and San Francisco-based Trulia combined had 137 million unique visitors in June, the companies said, far more than their next largest competitor, National Assn. of Realtors-affiliated Move Inc.

The two sites, with their troves of searchable, mappable home listings and other data, have transformed the way Americans shop for homes, giving consumers the sort of information that was long the exclusive domain of agents and multiple listing services…

Read more here…     http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-zillow-to-buy-trulia-20140728-story.html