Move (company)

Stuart Wolff founded the online real estate company Homestore Inc. in 1996.[12][13] He established a partnership with the National Association of Realtors, and his company, RealSelect Inc., operated Realtor.com. Under the agreement, the National Association of Realtors had a small stake in RealSelect.[13]

The company went public as Homestore.com, Inc. in 1999,[1] and was traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange.[14] In October 2000, Homestore agreed to purchase Move.com from Cendant Corp. for $761 million in stock, leaving Cendant with a 15 percent stake.[15][16][17] In 2001, Homestore operated the websites HomeBuilder.com, HomeFair.com, Realtor.com, and SpringStreet.com, acquired HomeBid, and owned the software Top Producer as well as Wyldfyre technologies.[18] In August, the company purchased iPlace Inc., for $150 million.[19]

During the rise of the dot-com bubble, Wolff was convicted of insider trading and falsifying revenue results, and several additional executives received prison sentences for inflating earnings.[20] Homestore's 2000 and 2001 financial reports required refiling, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the company in 2002.[12][13] Wolff's conviction was overturned on appeal in 2008,[12] but he eventually plea bargained for a sentence of 3–5 years.[21] Wolff resigned as CEO in January 2002,[12] and was replaced by a new management team.[13]

Homestore.com, Inc. changed its name to Homestore, Inc. in 2002, then rebranded as Move, Inc. in 2006.[1][20][22] The company's stock symbol was changed from "HOMS" to "MOVE", and the Move.com website was launched in May 2006.[23]

Move acquired the company Threewide, which operated the real estate listing service ListHub, for $13 million in September 2010. Move retained ListHub as its own separate brand.[24] Move launched an online mortgage offering called MortgageMatch.com in December 2010, targeting first time home buyers and those looking to refinance,[25] then acquired the social search platform SocialBios in 2011.[26] In 2013, Move reported $227 million in revenue and $600,000 in profit.[4] Move ended its three-year partnership with AOL real estate in December 2013, and its decade-long partnership with MSN Real Estate in July 2014.[27]

In September 2014, News Corporation agreed to purchase Move for $950 million, marking the former company's largest acquisition to date.[2] Move operated the third most-trafficked website network for U.S. listings at the time.[28][29] Ownership of Move is shared 80/20 between News Corp and REA Group, respectively.[4][30] The deal was endorsed by the National Association of Realtors, which licensed Move to operate the Realtor.com site.[30] This agreement continued after the deal closed in November.[14] In 2015, Move relocated its headquarters from San Jose to Santa Clara.[31]

Move acquired the document and transaction management provider Reesio, which specializes in residential real estate, in October 2015. The financial terms were not disclosed, and Reesio's four founders joined Move's team.[32] In 2016, Zillow paid $130 million to Move and the National Association of Realtors to settle a lawsuit over trade secrets, following its employment of two individuals who had held executive roles at Move.[3][33] Move sold its lead-generation company TigerLeads to Commissions Inc., a customer relationship management system provider, in December.[34]

Move acquired interior design and lifestyle website Remodelista and outdoor spaces and garden design website Gardenista in 2016 as part of Realtor.com's marketing strategy. At the time of purchase, the two sites represented 1.5 million monthly readers.[35] In June, 2019 the company sold back the websites to founder Julie Carlson and husband Josh Groves and are now independently operated by Remodelista LLC.[36]

Move acquired Opcity, the Austin, Texas-based real estate technology company, for $210 million in 2018. The company, which developed a platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to match potential home buyers with agents,[37] will continue to operate as an independent business.[38][39]