The battle lines have been drawn on rental listings.
Taking on the likes of Zillow and CoStar, Redfin struck a deal to buy RentPath for $608 million, the company said Friday. Yes, that’s the same RentPath that called off a $588 million sale to CoStar last year, after federal regulators blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. With Redfin, there are no such concerns since Redfin is new to the rental game.
During an investor call, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said one-third of Americans are renters, and to dominate the listings game the company needed to add rental inventory. (RentPath owns Rent.com, Rentals.com and ApartmentGuide.com, and averages 16 million monthly viewers from those sites.)