Rumors are swirling that online real estate listing service Zillow Inc. is seeking to acquire rival Trulia Inc.
Zillow could pay as much as $2 billion to buy Trulia and may pay about two-thirds of the purchase price with its own stock, according to a Bloomberg News report citing unnamed sources close to the deal. An agreement may be announced as soon as next week, according to the report.
The companies' websites had a combined 85 million unique visitors in June, accounting for about 89% of all traffic to the 15 most visited real estate sites tracked by ComScore, Bloomberg reports.
Although Zillow's annual revenue is expected to reach about $311 million this year, an increase of about 58% over last year, and Trulia's revenue is expected to rise 76% to about $253 million, neither company is currently profitable on an annual basis.
Earlier this month, Seattle-based Zillow announced that it is buying Retsly Software Inc., a year-old real estate startup that streamlines access to multiple listing service data for real estate technology developers. Last year, the company purchased StreetEasy, a real estate site focused on the New York City market, for $50 million in cash.
Other companies competing in the online listings space including Move Inc., which is also publicly traded, and Redfin Corp., which is backed by venture capital firms including Greylock Partners.
For more, check out the Bloomberg News report.