Trulia

Trulia
Founded2005; 19 years ago (2005)
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, US
Area servedUnited States
Founder(s)Pete Flint
Sami Inkinen
IndustryReal estate
Employees250+
ParentZillow
URLwww.trulia.com
LaunchedSeptember 23, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-09-23)
Current statusActive

Trulia is an American online real estate marketplace which is a subsidiary of Zillow. It facilitates buyers and renters to find homes and neighborhoods across the United States through recommendations, local insights, and map overlays that offer details on commute, schools, churches and nearby businesses.[1]

Founded in 2005, Trulia is based in San Francisco, California, and it is owned and operated by Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG).[2] Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, LLC.[3]

Company history

Founding

Trulia's founders British Pete Flint and Finnish Sami Inkinen met at Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2004, while looking for off-campus housing amidst studying for his MBA, Flint was surprised to discover that the local real estate information available online was often insufficient, out of date or both.[4] Flint and Inkinen took this opportunity to simplify the process of finding a new home through technology.[5] Flint was the CEO and Chairman from inception to acquisition. Trulia was incorporated on the 1st of June 2005.

Growth

In September 2005, Trulia launched its beta product, originally only serving properties in California. Soon after, with growing demand from listing agents wanting to give their listings more visibility nationwide, Trulia rolled out across the US less than a year later.[6]

In July 2012, Trulia filed for an initial public offering and stated they would trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TRLA.[7] In August 2012, Trulia revealed they would plan to raise up to $75 million in the IPO.[8] The IPO was priced at $17 per share, and began trading on September 20, 2012 at an opening price of $22.10.[9]

In May 2013, Trulia announced plans to acquire Market Leader Inc. (based in Kirkland, Washington) for $355 million, expanding its offerings for real estate agents.[10] The acquisition officially closed on August 20, 2013.

Acquisition

On July 28, 2014, Zillow announced a deal to buy Trulia for $3.5 billion.[11] The deal closed February 17, 2015.[12]

As of February 2019, Trulia's offices are at 535 Mission Street in San Francisco.[13]

Products

Trulia offers a variety of real estate and neighborhood products and services for consumers and realtors.[14]

In addition to its Android and iOS For Sale and Rentals apps, Trulia features:

Trulia Neighborhoods

In August 2018, Trulia launched Trulia Neighborhoods to enable home buyers, sellers, and renters to find information about a particular neighborhood.[15] The feature provides original photography, drone footage, reviews from local residents, and facts about each area.[16]

What Locals Say

In March 2018, Trulia launched What Locals Say, which allows home buyers, sellers, and renters to find information on what local residents think about the neighborhood they live in through polls and reviews.[17]

Local Legal Protections

In February 2018, Trulia launched a service called Local Legal Protections.[18] It provides information on local nondiscrimination laws for housing, employment, and public accommodations alongside property listings based on data collected by research nonprofit Movement Advancement Project.[19]

Data

Trulia provides price trend information by using listing and public data which shows how the price of a home has changed over a period of time as well as comparing that house price with other homes in the same ZIP code, city, county, or state.[20]

Trulia previously featured a crime map with data sourced from CrimeReports.com and SpotCrime.com, which aggregate crime data from law enforcement agencies and news reports.[21][22] In 2022, citing "bias in real estate", Trulia removed the crime data.[23]

Information on local schools and amenities is provided for each property listed on Trulia. The school map includes GreatSchools data, such as each school's name, grades taught, and the GreatSchools score. School and district boundaries are provided by Maponics. The amenities map is powered by Yelp data.[24]

Interactive Commuter and Transit maps show the driving or commute times from any given point in the United States.[25] Using data from OpenStreetMap and GTFS feeds, a visual representation of commute times is projected onto a geographical map.[26] This provides the ability to see at a glance how far one can travel from any given property in a given amount of time.

References

  1. ^ "Trulia Unveils New Mission To Help Buyers And Renters Discover Homes And Neighborhoods They'll Love". prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  2. ^ De La Merced, Michael (28 July 2014). "Zillow to Buy Trulia for $3.5 Billion in All-Stock Deal". The New York Times.
  3. ^ "TRULIA - Trademark Details". Justia.com.
  4. ^ Carey, Pete (12 October 2012). "Mercury News interview: Trulia CEO Peter Flint". Mercury News. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  5. ^ "Meet the Boss: Sami Inkinen, COO, Trulia". SFGate. 2010-08-29. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  6. ^ Marshall, Matt. "A new housing site. Oh, and Dogster may be profitable!". Silicon Beat. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  7. ^ "Form S-1 Registration Statement". SEC.gov. United States Securities and Exchange Commission. August 17, 2012.
  8. ^ Wauters, Robin (August 17, 2012). "Online real estate firm Trulia files S-1, plans to raise $75 million in IPO". thenextweb.com.
  9. ^ Tsukayama, Hayley (September 20, 2012). "Trulia IPO pops on debut, keeps climbing". The Washington Post.
  10. ^ Levy, Ari (May 8, 2013). "Trulia to Acquire Market Leader for $355 Million". Bloomberg L.P.
  11. ^ "Zillow to Buy Trulia for $3.5 Billion in All-Stock Deal". The New York Times. 28 July 2014.
  12. ^ Cook, John (17 February 2015). "Zillow closes $2.5 billion acquisition of Trulia, plans to cut 350 staffers". GeekWire.
  13. ^ King, John (November 14, 2014). "S.F.'s newest office tower shows poise in a time of flash". San Francisco Chronicle.
  14. ^ "Trulia Now Offering Neighborhood Intel--From Neighbors". BuilderOnline.com. March 19, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  15. ^ Mark, Wilson (August 14, 2018). "Trulia is building the Netflix for neighborhoods". Fast Company. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  16. ^ Kyle, Wiggers (August 14, 2018). "Trulia Neighborhoods gives homebuyers a drone's eye view on their new neighborhood". VentureBeat.com. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  17. ^ Chang, Lulu (March 19, 2018). "Trulia's 'What Locals Say' feature gives homebuyers neighborhood insights". DigitalTrends.com. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  18. ^ "Trulia now surfaces data on LGBT protections as you search for houses". Fast Company. February 7, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  19. ^ Hatmaker, Taylor (February 7, 2018). "Trulia adds an LGBTQ section with local non-discrimination laws to its home listings". TechCrunch.com. Yahoo. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  20. ^ Mary, Umberger (2008-06-20). "Testing some of the top home-search sites". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  21. ^ Liu, Gia (14 December 2020). "Get your next home with the best apartment-finder apps". Digital Trends.
  22. ^ Grabar, Henry (16 August 2018). "An Encyclopedia of Neighborhoods". Slate.
  23. ^ Bishop, Todd. "Trulia to drop neighborhood crime data from home listings, after Redfin speaks out against practice". GeekWire. MSN. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
  24. ^ "Trulia, AddressReport spotlighting local amenities with Yelp integration". Inman.
  25. ^ Hutchings, Emma (29 June 2012). "Heat Map Visualizes Your Daily Commute". Mashable. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  26. ^ Wilson, Mark. "Trulia's New Maps Show Your Commute Time From Your New House". Fast Company. Retrieved 14 November 2012.