Market Leader Inc., a provider of marketing and "software as a service" products to real estate professionals, has acquired lead-generation network RealEstate.com, the company announced today.
Market Leader paid $8.25 million in cash for the acquisition, which includes "patents, trademarks and approximately 400 domain names, including Realestate.com; software related to consumer Web services; information, contracts and content necessary to operate the Realestate.com website; and, a network of over 250 real estate broker customers," according to a regulatory filing dated Sept. 15.
Earlier this year, Market Leader also acquired mobile lead-generation platform developer kwkly and real estate marketing company SharperAgent. In August, the company launched Market Insider, a tool that offers customized reports of housing market statistics and demographic trends in a local area.
In the second quarter, Market Leader trimmed its losses to $2.8 million as revenue grew 43 percent from the same period a year ago, to $8.3 million. Much of the revenue boost came from providing the lead management, contact management and marketing design components of Keller Williams’ eEdge platform for agents.
The Kirkland, Wash.-based company plans to further grow RealEstate.com as a lead-generation platform for its 60,000-plus real estate professional customers and as a consumer site that will leverage Market Leader’s partnerships with multiple listing services nationwide, the company said.
"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, in a statement.
Market Leader bought RealEstate.com from two subsidiaries of Tree.com: LendingTree LLC and RealEstate.com Inc. Tree.com closed down a related real estate brokerage company — RealEstate.com, Realtors — in March due to sharply declining revenue and heavy agent losses, but had continued to operate RealEstate.com as a lead-generation network.
Steve Ozonian, the former CEO of Tree.com’s RealEstate.com division, was appointed chief real estate officer of Carrington Holding Company LLC in April.
Another RealEstate.com executive, Kurt Gleeson, moved to real estate brokerage Atlantic & Pacific Real Estate LLC, a Carrington affiliate, as senior vice president for the company’s Internet channel.
Atlantic & Pacific also assumed the leases of RealEstate.com, Realtors brokerage offices in Stoneham, Mass.; Conyers, Ga.; Clearwater, Fla.; Orlando. Fla.; Mt Laurel, N.J.; McLean, Va.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Tucson, Ariz.; King of Prussia, Pa.; Dover, Del.; and Oak Brook, Ill.
Through its affiliated companies, Carrington Capital Management LLC and Carrington Mortgage Services LLC, Carrington is both both an investor in mortgage-backed securities and a mortgage servicer. Many listings represented by Atlantic & Pacific are real estate owned (REO) properties.
Other Carrington affiliates manage properties and provide settlement services. Those companies include Carrington Property Services LLC, White Van Real Estate Services LP, Atlantic & Pacific Escrow Inc., and Atlantic & Pacific Settlement Services LLC.
Inman News reporters Matt Carter and Andrea V. Brambila contributed to this report.
