Realogy buys ZipRealty – quick thoughts

Realogy announced today that it intends to by ZipRealty for $166 million in cash.

This is a really, really smart move. Congratulations to all involved.

I’m just headed into the Inman show, but thought I’d jot down a few thoughts:

• I’ve taken a close look at Zip’s technology over the past few months, and they’ve made great strides. They recently began making their entire tech platform – mobile/desktop website, CRM, etc. – available to other brokerages on a white-label basis and early progress was good.  They have a very sleek mobile web version of their CRM solution that’s especially impressive.
• Realogy gets Zip’s brokerage operations, but the exciting part of this deal is in the tech. Franchisors struggle with the buy/build/license choice with tech all the time and this move, while not cheap, does give them a team and a modern platform to build on.
• Let’s not forget that ZipRealty.com is still a heavily-trafficked site that has been leveraged for the past few years to sell leads to non-Zip brokers – including some big independents. It will be interesting to see how this plays out now that Realogy has a significant pipeline in the real estate lead system.

An interesting year just got more interesting. I love it!