The leading real estate information marketplace Zillow (Z) acquired HotPads, a map-based rental and real estate search site for $16 million, on Monday.
The agreement will help Zillow expand to a broader rental audience by extending its marketing tools and productivity solutions.
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year and HotPads will join the Zillow Rental Network.
“This acquisition represents a significant step-change for Zillow Rentals, allowing us to dramatically increase the number of leads we send to landlords. HotPads has a younger, complementary and rental-focused audience,” said CEO Spencer Rascoff of Zillow. “Now Zillow will become even more relevant to consumers at the beginning of their real estate life cycle.”
He added, “In addition, by acquiring an amazing engineering team, with a deep understanding of how people search for rentals and become tenants, we expect to accelerate our innovation and monetization of our rental marketplace.”
Founded in 2005, HotPads offers a website and five mobile applications, with almost 2.8 users using the company’s resources in October. About 70% of listings viewed were homes or apartments for rent.
“At HotPads, we’re passionate about empowering people with tools and information to help them find the right place to live, and we have always admired Zillow’s similar vision,” said co-founder and CEO Matt Corgan of HotPads.
He added, “Combining Zillow’s toolkit for owners and managers with an unmatched community of new tenants—across Zillow, Yahoo! and HotPads— we believe will enable the first true marketplace at scale for rentals.”
HotPads is the sixth recent acquisition by Zillow. In less than two years, the company has acquired companies such as Buyfolio, RentJuice and Mortech.
