Profitable for Three Years, Apartment List Raises $15M Series A Round

Unlike some other up-and-comers in the space, Apartment List never scraped Craigslist to boost its inventory.

News Byte

Real Estate Website Zillow Buys New York-Centric StreetEasy for $50 Million

Online real estate database company Zillow has purchased StreetEasy for $50 million in cash. StreetEasy, which claims 1.2 million unique users, is much smaller than Zillow (and Trulia), but is considered a go-to site in the highly competitive New York City real estate market. Zillow has also announced a public offering of 2.5 million shares.

News Byte

Have a Housing Question for President Obama? Vine It, Zillow Says.

Online real estate site Zillow will host a housing-related Q&A with President Obama on Wednesday, and it’s getting all social media-y with the question-submission process. The company says it will take questions for the president delivered through tweets and Facebook posts with the hashtag #AskObamaHousing. But because more social media integration is apparently always better, Zillow is welcoming video submissions on Vine, Instagram and YouTube that you then share to Facebook or Twitter. The chat is scheduled for Wednesday at 10 am PT, and will air at Yahoo.com, Zillow.com/WhiteHouse and WhiteHouse.gov.

News Byte

Redfin’s Price Whisperer Aims to Help You Price Your Home Just Right

Redfin, the online real estate brokerage, today announced the launch of Price Whisperer, a free product that helps potential home sellers determine what buyers are willing to pay for their home. Redfin works with homeowners to come up with a desired price, and then emails four photos of the home, along with some basic info, to in-market buyers in the area, and asks them if they would pay the amount asked. Homeowners get an email two days later summarizing the results, at which point they can decide to list the home with Redfin, take their business elsewhere, or do nothing at all. The product, which is available in markets including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, is somewhat similar to Zillow’s Make Me Move offering.

Voices

Boom Time for Zillow, Trulia, Other Web Home-Search Firms

Prices of Bay Area homes are climbing quickly, but not as fast as the value of Bay Area technology companies that help people search for homes online.

Trulia Thinks Outside the Search Box for Smarter House-Hunting

Trulia Suggests promises a more intelligent, personalized way to search for a new home.

House-Snooping App Homesnap Launches Website, Plans Android App

Can Homesnap, a mobile app that lets you peek at other people’s property values, compete with Zillow and Trulia?

Trulia Gets a Boost From a Strong Mobile Real Estate Market

Trulia’s shares hit an all-time high today, driven in part by the strong performance of mobile.

Home-Design Help — At What Cost?

Zillow Digs, a new app and website, shows photos of beautiful rooms and provides estimates that tell people how much it might cost them to do the same remodel in their homes.

Realtors Launch a Tech Startup Program of Their Own

The National Association of Realtors wants to try its hand at startup investing.