If Zillow receives regulatory approval for its planned $3.5 billion acquisition of real estate listing website Trulia, the property listing and mortgage lead marketplace plans to operate both brands' websites as a combined company.
"They'll be different brands to the consumer but to the industry, it'll be one company," Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff said Wednesday during a real estate conference in New York.
Rascoff likened the arrangement to Viacom's ownership of both the MTV and VH1 cable networks, and added real estate professionals who advertise property listings on the two sites will benefit from integrated tools for updating information.
"It will be simpler for them to manage listings; simpler for them to manage their own profile and reviews," he said.
Zillow and Trulia
The Zillow/Trulia deal would follow News Corp.'s $950 million acquisition of Realtor.com parent company Move Inc., which was announced in September 2014 and closed in November 2014.
Move Inc. has long benefited from its relationship with the National Association of Realtors. NAR once held an ownership stake in Move Inc. and licensed its branding for the Realtor.com website. The partnership also let Realtor.com
The arrangement promoted a sense of ownership of the Realtor.com website by many of NAR's real estate agent members, Rascoff said. But now that NAR doesn't own a stake in Move, real estate agents should reexamine those loyalties, he said.
"Realtor.com is News Corp. News Corp. owns Realtor.com," Rascoff said. "It's not your website. It's Rupert Murdoch's website."
