US-based real estate website, Zillow, will acquire another US-based real estate giant, Trulia, for $3.5bn in a stock for stock transaction.
This deal is will help Zillow maintain its top position in the US market, and the companies expect that the partnership will facilitate corporate cost savings, create more value for its users and help its advertisers get better ROI.
Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff said: "Consumers love using Zillow and Trulia to find vital information about homes and connect with the best local real estate professionals.
"Both companies have been enormously successful in creating compelling consumer brands and deep industry partnerships, but it’s still early days in the world of real estate advertising on mobile and web.
"This is a tremendous opportunity to combine our resources and achieve even more impressive innovation that will benefit consumers and the real estate industry."
The companies make most of their revenue through advertising sales to real estate professionals.
According to Zillow, the combined revenue of both the companies account for less than 4% of the estimated $12bn spent by real-estate professionals on marketing their services to potential consumers each year, and the company wants to focus on improving upon it.
Trulia had 54 million unique visitors to its site via mobile and web in June 2014 alone, while Zillow had 83 million. The merger will increase the number of visitors significantly. For now, both the companies will maintain their individual brand and Rascoff estimates that the companies together will be able to save around $100m by 2016.
