Will Zillow Suck The Oxygen Out of Trulia?

May 12, 2007 Michael Wurzer

When Zillow released their promote anyone’s listing program in order to generate listing data on their site a month or so ago, I suggested that instead they should avoid such tactics and just buy or merge with Trulia, which already has quite a few listings. With both listings and Zestimates, “Zulia” would be closer to reaching the critical mass necessary to “suck the oxygen” out of the residential real estate space by providing a site attractive to both buyers and sellers and, therefore, agents and brokers and lenders and everyone else involved with real estate.

My Zulia suggestion didn’t get a lot of attraction back then, but Trulia’s recent update to their site seems to have resuscitated the idea, at least in the RE.net.  After thinking a bit about Trulia being a “juicy acquisition target“, though, I wonder what the data feed agreements between Trulia and the big franchises say about mergers. Would the same franchises be as friendly with Zulia as they are with Trulia?