Trulia is an American online real estate marketplace which is a subsidiary of
Zillow
Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006, and was created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer ...
. It facilitates buyers and renters to find homes and neighborhoods across the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
through recommendations, local insights, and map overlays that offer details on a commute, schools, churches and nearby businesses.
Founded in 2005, Trulia is based in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, and it is owned and operated by Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG). Trulia is a registered trademark of Trulia, LLC.
Company history
Founding
Trulia's founders British
Pete Flint
Pete Flint OBE (born 25 July 1974) is a British internet entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco. He is the founder and former chairman and CEO of Trulia. Formerly, he was part of the founding team at lastminute.com. He is currently ...
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MBA, Flint was surprised to discover that the local real estate information available online was often insufficient, out of date or both. Flint and Inkinen took this opportunity to simplify the process of finding a new home through technology. 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.
In July 2012, Trulia filed for an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
and stated they would trade on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
under the symbol TRLA.
In August 2012, Trulia revealed they would plan to raise up to $75 million in the IPO. The IPO was priced at $17 per share, and began trading on September 20, 2012 at an opening price of $22.10.
In May 2013, Trulia announced plans to acquire Market Leader Inc. (based in
Kirkland, Washington
Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in the county and the twelfth largest in the state.
The city's downto ...
) for $355 million, expanding its offerings for real estate agents. The acquisition officially closed on August 20, 2013.
Acquisition
On July 28, 2014,
Zillow
Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006, and was created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer ...
announced a deal to buy Trulia for $3.5 billion.
The deal closed February 17, 2015.
As of February 2019, Trulia's offices are at
535 Mission Street in San Francisco.
Products
Trulia offers a variety of real estate and neighborhood products and services for consumers and realtors.
In addition to its
Android and
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
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. The feature provides original photography, drone footage, reviews from local residents, and facts about each area.
;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.
; Local Legal Protections :
In February 2018, Trulia launched a service called Local Legal Protections. 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.
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.
Trulia previously featured a crime map with data sourced fro
CrimeReports.comand
SpotCrime.com
SpotCrime.com is a Baltimore-based company founded in October 2007 and privately owned by ReportSee, Inc. Its' purpose is to provide nationwide crime information about arrests, arsons, assaults, burglaries, robberies, shootings, thefts and vanda ...
, which aggregate crime data from law enforcement agencies and news reports. In 2022, citing "bias in real estate", Trulia removed the crime data.
Information on local schools and amenities is provided for each property listed on Trulia. The school map include
GreatSchoolsdata, such as each school's name, grades taught, and the GreatSchools score. School and district boundaries are provided by
Maponics
Maponics is a Pitney Bowes company headquartered in White River Junction, Vermont, United States that produces geographic boundary data that is used in mapping applications and other services that utilize Location-based service, location-based da ...
. The amenities map is powered by
Yelp
Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San F ...
data.
Interactive Commuter and Transit maps show the driving or commute times from any given point in the United States. Using data fro
OpenStreetMapsand GTFS feeds, a visual representation of commute times is projected onto a geographical map.
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
External links
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{{Authority control
Online real estate databases
Companies based in San Francisco
Real estate companies established in 2005
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Universal Windows Platform apps
American real estate websites
Internet properties established in 2005
2015 mergers and acquisitions
American corporate subsidiaries
2012 initial public offerings