Trulia acquires Market Leader for $355M, stock falls 7.75%

Trulia acquires Market Leader

Today, Trulia announced it will acquire Market Leader which is not only a Software as a Service (SaaS) contact management company, but the owner of real estate blogging platform ActiveRain, and real estate search company, RealEstate.com. Both companies are publicly traded, and while Trulia’s stock ended the day down 7.75 percent, Market Leader’s stock rose 12.80 percent for the day, as the DOW closes over 15,000 today for the first time in history.

Trulia CEO, Pete Flint said in a statement, “We are very excited about the enhanced value this transaction will bring to all of our customers and partners, helping them capture more upside as the housing market recovers.”

Further, Flint adds, “Together, we will help brokerages and franchisors harness the power of technology to reach consumers and enhance the productivity of their agents by offering them the most comprehensive end-to-end solution via the web and mobile devices. Our combined product suite also will enable agents to increase their follow-up capabilities, level of engagement with consumers and the return on investment on their leads.”

Combined subscriber count of 46k

The company calls it a “transformative transaction” as the combined paying subscriber count between the two companies is 46,000 which they say is more than any other company in the online real estate marketplace.

Also touting that the partnership “provides unprecedented functionality to the entire real estate customer chain,” Trulia says it will help real estate professionals to “capture more upside from the housing recovery and the technology transforming the consumer-agent relationship.”

The acquisition firmly plants Trulia in the services industry, and the long term reception to the partnership is yet to be seen as all of the pieces fall into place. As we have long forecast, this is the year of acquisitions, and this will not be the last multi-million dollar buy in the real estate technology sector.